floors

No. The feeling of space a room has is determined by many separate things: color of walls, floors, height of ceilings, placement/type/brightness of lights, amount of natural light, type/color/length of any window treatments, size/color of furniture, et cetera. So plenty of rooms can look tiny with very light-colored floors but limited lighting, an overabundance of large furniture and gloomy drapes, for instance. No one criteria is likely to make a room look smaller without the 'help' of another item(s).

No but really dark floors show every bit of dust....

....true... but very light floors show lots of dust, soot, and dirt (think that black filmy dust you get living in NYC from having the windows open.) -- I've lived with both, I think it mainly depends on personal preference, and your own pet peeves for dirt or dust. Also dust bunnies are gray and show up on anything.

tandare, your description describes my apartment perfectly!

crap, minus the drapes. but i really need smaller furniture.

I don't know, depends on how light you're talking. certainly white floors would show dirt. I agree with nycbuyer1 about the dust issue w/ dark floors. my mother did her house in very dark floors and wishes she had selected a more medium tone. they never look clean for more than a minute, especially if you have wool rugs....god, the thought of all those little fibers constantly lurking on the floor is enough to throw me over the edge!!!
To answer original question, i don't think dark floors alone would make a space look smaller.

Good Luck.

wishhouse, ultimately if you like it, who cares what others think?

uwsmom, how dark are your mom's floors? walnut? nearly ebony?

hmm..i would say a dark mahogany. i would consider walnut closer to medium than dark. anywho, i would not survive in a house with dark floors b/c i can't stand to see dust all about. just personal preference...

This is very helpful. It's a small apartment, but there's a lot of natural light and I could work with other variables like the furniture size, etc. But didn't know about this dust issue. Now that I think of it, I had a friend who was vary particular about keeping her apartment spotless, but I always noticed that the floor would get this whitish, almost filmy look. I thought the floors had been done poorly, which didn't make sense given this particular person, but now I think the issue was dust-- just too hard to stay on top of that constantly. Maybe medium is the best bet...thanks!