House And Home Decorating Living Room

Use Furniture Scaling To Exaggerate A Living Room’s Proportions

If your living room has low ceilings or you want to make a living rooms ceilings feel taller than they are picking a low-slung couch for a small living room is a simple way to make the room feel taller.

Note, too, low furniture creates a much more relaxed living room, while taller furniture or high-backed seating creates a more formal feel.

Add Texture With An Exposed Brick Wall

Now if you are lucky, you will find beautiful bricks under your plaster and it can be a straightforward, if not slightly messy, DIY project to expose them. We love this living room look as it’s cozy and nods a little to the industrial trend too.

We have a guide to how to create an exposed brick wall if you want a step by step.

Decorate With A Light Color Palette

Its always effective to use a palette of light living room colors, but in different materials and textures. A common misperception is that the less furniture and features you have in the space, the bigger it will look.

But in fact, multiple zones and features create a perception of different spaces within one room. Its all about the right furniture size, the right swatch and the right small living room lighting ideas. Try to stick to a neutral living room scheme in smaller spaces, introducing splashes of color with accessories.

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Decorate In A Neutral Palette

The search for the ideal neutral is not as easy as it would initially appear. Pure whites can often be too stark, while trying to warm it up means possibly straying into magnolia territory. The color wheel is your oyster when it comes to choosing accompanying shades. For a soothing feel, sage or olive are perfect partners, soft browns and whites add elegance, while dusky pinks add subtle vibrancy.

Here, a nature-inspired palette of cool neutrals provides a beautiful backdrop to a host of raw materials, delicate texture and lush greenery.

Contrast Light And Dark Colours

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Conventional wisdom dictates that you should use pale or neutral colour schemes in a small room. White, cream, grey, silver, and pale variations of primary colours are most often seen in smaller living rooms. The reason for this is that they make the most of the available light, while dark colours are traditionally avoided. Despite this, contrasting light and dark colours can provide a stunning overall effect. Choosing a light colour such as white or grey for your walls and adding dark accents, for example, by painting furnishings or skirting boards, will give the room more depth and interest.

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Create A Conversation Area

To give your country living room an atmosphere of warmth and welcome, arrange seating to make conversation not the TV the focus.

‘In this room, the armchairs and sofas face each other across an upholstered ottoman, on which a tray of drinks or afternoon tea could be placed,’ says interior designer Jojo Bradley. ‘The comfortable furniture is softened further with cushions that invite you to relax and settle in for a while.’

This type of furniture arrangement works really well for small or larger groups, too. The pair of armchairs with their own side table provide an area for two people to sit and talk together, while the sofas provide additional seating when crowds gather.

Be Sympathetic To The Age Of Your Property

Work with the age of your home to create a sympathetic design that is both timeless and stylish. To reflect the age of the property, interior design company Sigmar used traditional grey for the walls, providing a contemporary note with pale-green doors and woodwork.

A stronger color was added with green Kaare Klint Safari chairs and cushions in sea blue tones to create a calm but edgy look. This space was stripped of its Victorian details in the 1960s, says designer Ebba Thott. We reinstated cornicing and deep skirting boards, raising the door frames to celebrate the ceiling height.

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Bring A Second Color Into Your Living Room Decor

If you’re tired of your living room’s look but love the main color you’ve used, why not just add a new accent color to the scheme to pep it up? You could paint your walls in a color that contrasts your sofa as you can see in this amazing living room, or if you are after something a tad more subtle, just introduce a second color by painting a portion of your walls.

Design A Picture Perfect Living Room

Yellow living room ideas can be really elegant if you combine them with antique pieces and traditional furniture, arranged in considered fashion around a central coffee table to create a classic look. The grand proportions of the room are accentuated by the series of prints hung symmetrically across one entire wall, adding both personality and color to the scheme.

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Mix Motifs But Keep The Scheme Simple

Monochromatic color schemes are very restful. Using a variety of motifs in one hue and keeping pattern to the upholstery, while walls and floors remain plain, brings depth to a scheme without it feeling too busy. In this room, a striking wave design on the sofa offers a contrast to the more subtle prints elsewhere.

Warm Up A Monotone Scheme With Wood

South Carolina-based interior designer Cortney Bishop is known for her modern design vision that runs the gamut of style and structure, balancing comfort with creativity and functionality.

She brings this to the living rooms she designs by combining neutrals with a ton of wood textures, which make the spaces feel easy to live with, airy and bright, but warm and welcoming, too. Here, the wooden ceiling is the star of the show, subtly echoed below by the warm tones in the furniture and soft furnishings.

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Modern Organic Living Room Ideas

If youve got a small space, try going for a modern organic living room look. Modern organic rooms emphasize natural materials like wood, make use of browns and whites and often feature plenty of house plants. Lighter and brighter than classic modern style, its an ideal look for a small modern living room. While these style rooms are great for letting natural light in, if you live in an apartment, you may also need some added privacy. If youre in need of some modern living room curtain ideas that wont look frumpy, just remember to keep it simple. Floor-length white curtains will give the space a breezy feeling while Roman shades will keep the space looking trim and uncluttered.

Mix And Match Contrasting Colors Alongside Texture

If you are after living room decor ideas that are instantly going to add something different to your space, choosing a couple of colors to repeat together is a great place to start. We love the repetition of green and pink in this lounge decor as it draws the eye across the room, and, the colors work perfectly together.

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Most Important Room Items

You do want to choose your most expensive or favorite item and decorate around it. For many people, that item might be the sofa. So, buy the best quality sofa you can afford. A sofa is a big investment and you want it to last. Remember, a sofa of average quality should last at least 10 years while a high-end sofa should last up to 25.

One of the least important items to figure out at the beginning of room decoration is paint color. Paint is available in thousands of colors and can easily be changed. In most cases, it should be one of the last things you do decide on.

Also, as one of the most interesting rooms of the house, you should not be afraid to mix higher ticket items with some low. There are a lot of great ways to save on decor, and sometimes you should splurge on certain home decor.

Focus In On Your Aesthetic

The Spruce / Letícia Almeida

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Layer Color On Color For A Warm Welcoming Space

A harmonious and joyful living room has been created using the colors in the rug as the center point, pulling tones out to feature within the scheme. Muted pink walls offer just the right background palette and work well set against the crisp whites, which are key in the mix to offer breathing space amid all the color.

Shapely furniture in warm hues is layered alongside a classic sofa in chalky white linen, punctuated with accessories in jewel brights.

Embrace The Trend For Reimagined Ditsy Florals

This minimal living room from one of H& G‘s decorating shoots is brought to life with a fabulously vibrant twist on traditional chintz perfect country living room ideas when you want a more contemporary feel.

The neutral backdrop allows for the bright, colorful textile pattern to take center-stage. The simple lines of the elegant, contemporary sofa have been covered with this glorious Spring Garden textile design for a heavenly pairing. The pink kilim, artwork and co-ordinating cushions all help to pull the scheme together for a modern twist on a classic look.

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Create A Welcoming Space With A Ton Of Texture

If you are looking for long living room ideas that make cold and disunited spaces feel more cohesive and welcoming, look to this room. ots of texture in furnishings, furniture and even wall surfaces and flooring, can make the space feel more cohesive and warmer.

In the living room picture above, the rug is the dominant textural feature in the room, echoed by the material the blinds are made from and the various pieces of wooden or wicker furniture. The effect is heightened and complemented by the texture of the wall panels.

How Should I Decorate My Living Room

A good starting point for decorating a living room is to think about how many people you need to fit in your space on a regular basis. This will help you to choose the right living room furniture and living room storage.

Your floor plan should consider the rooms layout from a social and practical point of view. Plan seating in groups to ensure conversation flows when you have guests and consider scale and how different pieces will sit together. Seating heights vary so balance is key, but make sure guests are seated at the same level.

‘Not everything has to be two-by-two when it comes to layout,’ says interior designer Nina Campbell. ‘By combining different styles, colors and finishes you will create an effortlessly eclectic look.’

‘Do put together a measured plan of your living room before buying new pieces of furniture to understand the sizes you require,’ explains Emma Sims Hilditch, interior designer at Sims-Hilditch. ‘That way you will avoid making expensive mistakes.’

In terms of color, your living room should reflect how you want to feel in that space. It is the room in which you will spend the most time in, so it is important to get it right.

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Ideas For Small Living Room Furniture

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You may be wondering how to furnish a small living room. One practical idea that an interior designer may use is dual-purpose or function furnishings, they are real lifelines for those who own small terraced homes or flats. Sofa beds are one of the most common examples of this, but these days there are more and more options for people who want to make the most of small spaces. Coffee tables that also hide chairs or chairs which can be folded out into single beds for guests, are both great ways to make your small living space work harder for you!

Use Pattern As Accents To Perk Up Plains Subtly

This small, yet perfectly formed living room in a stucco fronted townhouse in Londons Chelsea was created by interior designer Henry Prideaux for an American client. He wanted Henry to bring a flavour of the English country in the city to his London residence.

Henry says, Dont be afraid to go for bold color and pattern in a small space. Its all about balance. A scheme featuring cleverly selected furniture pieces layered together with textured rugs and tactile fabrics can create a really inviting and comfortable space even if square footage is compromised.

‘Sophisticated artwork and eye catching accessories can be displayed to provide lots of interesting little vignettes throughout.’

Henry also explains that clever small living room lighting ideas can not only make a room lighter, but feel larger too: ‘A lighting scheme that includes light sources at varying levels enhances the room and helps to create mood at different times of the day.

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How Do You Decorate Walls In A Small Living Room

Make the most of reflective surfaces in a small living room. ‘Consider finishing the walls in polished plaster, a material that reflects light and increases visual perception of space. Any other reflective decorative surfaces, such as patinated mirrors, silver leaf or lacquer will make the space seem bigger too,’ explains Irina Townsend, Keir Townsend .

Choose Furnishings With Exposed Or Narrow Legs

Furniture with thin, spindly legs and exposed sides create the illusion of space by allowing us to see through and beyond them. In short, when you have a traditional coffee table or bookcase, the area that they use to function is taken from the room, but so too is all the space that they cover. When you choose an open, thin-framed bookcase or coffee table, you can still see the walls behind and the floor underneath them. While this makes no practical or functional difference, it does give the illusion of more openness.

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Use Your Walls To Minimise Clutter

Image credit : Idealhome.co.uk

Hanging decorations which double as storage options is another great way to keep a small living room feeling spacious and airy. Hanging small baskets on the wall, or a cloth storage tower from the ceiling is a great way to store small loose items, such as children’s toys. Ultimately helping to keep your living room less cluttered.

Our top hanging basket picks….

2. Cover up the floor

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Not entirely, of course! These days wooden flooring is far more desirable than wall to wall carpeting. Therefore, if you have polished floorboards, covering up part of this with a sizeable rug will break up the floor space and give the illusion of a grander room by creating more defined areas. Rugs also add texture, warmth, and movement to a living room, which is otherwise plain.

Large rugs we love….

Create A Cozy Vibe With Low Slung Furniture

This is the perfect cozy living room idea for smaller spaces choose furniture that’s close to the ground to not only create a lovely laid-back cozy feeling but also to create the allusion the space is bigger and taller. All the different textures and warm colors turn this small living room in a modern home, into a gorgeous farmhouse-style snug.

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Don’t Start In The Furniture Store

Many have heard the advice to avoid grocery shopping when youre hungry, because it leads to poor choices. The same holds true for furniture stores dont go shopping in a panic, just because you have an empty home. Yes, you need a sofa. But if you pick the pink-striped sectional just because you like it in the store, without taking measurements or thinking about the rest of the room, youre stuck with it. The rest of the room will have to be built around that sofa, and if its too large for the space it will look forever awkward.

Start in the room youre looking to furnish, armed with a measuring tape and a notepad.