How to Style your Living Room
While designers often are tasked to focus on a kitchen or bathroom remodel, we oftentimes head into a project hoping to also get our hands on a living room. Why? Because it is so fun to transform a space from cluttered and unorganized to beautiful, sleek and functional. Like a kitchen, the living room can be the heart of the home. It is often where your family and guests gather for a quick visit or relaxed evening in, so why not make it as attractive and inviting as possible?
Below, read our 5 rules on how to create the perfect living room, no matter your design style.
Choose a Color Palette
The overall color of your room will greatly affect the rest of the room’s design. Start by taking inventory of what you have already and what you love. Is there a piece of art that you want to stay in the room? A certain piece of furniture? Take notes from those pieces and try to compliment them with the overall room’s color palette and paint. Focus on what colors you love in those pieces and use them as your inspiration for the rest of the room.
Neutrals of whites and creams in a living room create a blank canvas for the rest of the room giving more creative leeway for bolder, brighter accent pieces. Blues and greens translate into more calming and serene rooms where relaxation is the end goal. Bolder hues like reds, yellows, and oranges empower and energize, often encouraged for the more bold and adventurous designs.
Arrange your Furniture Strategically
Be mindful of your room size and the measurements of your furniture before playing Tetris with them in your living room. Larger rooms can handle bigger, bulkier furniture while smaller living rooms often need more delicate, functional only pieces. It is in larger spaces where your goal should be making the room feel more “intimate” while in smaller spaces, the goal is the opposite where you should aim to make your room feel as “open and spacious” as possible. Don’t try to fit the oversized sofa in a living room where realistically, a smaller intimate love seat is the ideal option.
When planning the layout of your furniture, consider the rooms’ function and traffic flow. If the room is for conversation, place your sofa and chairs on opposites sides of a console table or in an “L” shaped fashion. For a theater room, aim for focused direction on the big screen. Or, if you have a beautiful focal point you want to highlight, direct the seats of your furniture to showcase that. For instance, create a “U” shaped pattern with a chair on the left, sofa in the middle, and a chair on the right facing towards the expansive window or fireplace.
Follow the Odd Number Rule
It is no secret that in design, odd numbers rule. Stick to 1’s, 3’s or 5’s. This rule applies for anything in your room you plan to use as accent pieces – pillows for your sofas and chairs, candlesticks on the mantle, books on the coffee table. Arrange these pieces in odd number groups rather than ‘coupling’ two or four.
It is also important to note the use of varying shape in design. Pair long vertical accent pieces with bulkier, lower, or ground level horizontal accents to create a more appealing visual affect.
Anchor with a Rug
With hardwood or tile flooring, anchor the room with an area rug to make the room feel warmer. Choose the largest rug you can for the space ensuring you leave a traffic walk way as well as access to doors or movable chairs, preferably with 15-18” of bare floor surrounding the rug. If you have a larger living room, aim to place all your case good furniture on top of the rug in a floating fashion. For a medium sized room, place a rug in the center of all your furniture with the furniture at least halfway on the rug. For this method, ensure your side tables are either fully “on” or “off” of the rug to avoid instability. For smaller rooms, a smaller, more functional rug can be used directly under the coffee table.
Avoid the use of an area rug for carpeted rooms. Oftentimes having a rug on top of carpet in a living room clutters the overall design.
Hang Drapes
After all is said and done and the furniture is in the right spot, the artwork is on the wall, the pillows are on the sofa – address your windows. Do you need floor length drapes to really finish he room? Or will roman shades or shutters do the trick?
Because window coverings sometimes are the “last thought,” store-bought ones are often hard to pair with the room’s design; thus, why many order custom window treatments to really finalize a room. Should you need more guidance on window treatments, see our blogs Picture Perfect Windows Part 1 and Part 2 for more information on the varying types and how to hang them or stop in our showroom for guidance.