If your living area also functions as a home office, furnishings arrangements can help to define both areas, just as they do in this open concept living and home office area from Cathie Hong Interiors far left, far right.
Deep paint colours by Michaela Burns Interiors feature in this moody space. 8. Oozing intimacy and warmth, these daring dark paint hues are inviting.
1. Think about your lifestyle
Whatever your use of it, your living room should reflect this: if you’re a party host, create a visual ace in the hole where your guests and conversation can converge; families with kids, offer more seating and easy TV access for a movie-watching moment.
By layering up design styles, bold and different styles, like modern with traditional (as the animal print chairs and fringed pendant lights illustrate above), provide an eye-catching eclectic effect. Plus the use of modern living room ideas with jewel tones, jade green and sapphire blue, offer a fresher, new colour palette that softens and links them together effortlessly.
Furniture that floats visually adds interest while making it easier to organise accent pieces, such as artwork or books, which can be placed on built-in shelves. The end result is a more convivial lounge area that’s still stylish
2. Create a conversation circle
It’s also common for sofas and chairs to be a little too far apart in the living room. A seating plan that keeps everyone visible encourages interaction while making it feel less conversational and more formal.
Chairs arranged around a table would be visually much more impactful (and less visually space-consuming) than sofas for seating, as in this client project by Brophy Interiors: The circular shape provides more visual interest than the square one, leggy chairs would leave the views to both the floor and the fireplace unobstructed visually, and visually are not very space-consuming either.
Never conceal features that give the place character – an exposed brick wall or an odd, aqua-coloured fireplace tile, for instance, can lend a room visual interest – not to mention an excuse to accent with pillows, a rug or other small touches.
3. Add a large-scale photo
When designing a large living room, for example, we tend to select one ‘star’ piece in the room. It could be paintings or wallpaper, which should be the focal point. It can immediately draw guests’ looking point. Colours should be bright and vivid in contrast with furniture and floor in order to draw more attention.
Textured decorative elements can help add visual interest and depth to a space. Weaved rugs, natural wood features and rattan accent chairs can help to make a large living room feel more inviting.
Another way to do this is to go with neutral colours, but add furniture and details such as greenery to pop out and bring the eye in. Green acts as a counterpoint to a colour scheme and you can make it the focus of your design elements, or just use it as an accent.
4. Keep it cozy
The living room should be an inviting place where one can chill-out after a stressful day, perhaps by watching a movie on a Friday evening with your family, or cuddled up with friends in front of a good book, having a great conversation over tea or coffee or simply switching on the TV and watching it with them in any position. it takes only a few ideas to make it comfortable!
Soft lighting choices and cloth accessories will make any living room cosy and inviting in a few minutes. Lamp heights vary to create dimming environments, and bulbs have warm settings. Organic furniture shapes soften the space – curves on sofas, round coffee tables.
Reading nook created by Hayden Dendy of BRNS Design, showcasing extra seats for family and guests, easy symmetry to complement the main space and the most incredible place to settle in with a good book.
5. Make it yours
Think of theses steps as reverse engineering: figure out how you’re going to use a room before you design it. Once you do so, you will be able to mutter ‘Zen grandma!’ to yourself with conviction – as in, there’s an open-plan room that affords each of its interconnected parts its own rich role in a space that, together, envelops you in family togetherness. This living room designed by the Connecticut-based Camden Grace Interiors creates ample airtime for the TV or the fireplace, depending on whether your mood leans more toward ‘Netflix and chill’ or the homey appeal of sitting in front of a hearth – both of which are placed at a comfortable distance from one another.
It can also be unnerving to see contrasting design styles side by side, but if carefully chosen, it can add variety and unexpected delight. In this image, the contrast between the black cane sofa and palm leaf-motif cushions brings an exotic edge to an otherwise rather neutral scheme.
Put some books on built-in shelves to add layers of colour and texture in a living room. To maintain visual harmony, opt for books in the same palette.
