While the living room is typically the place where you relax in front of the television, entertain family and friends, or just veg out in the recliner by the window on a rainy day, in today’s housing market many of the rooms in our homes designed to be dual or even multipurpose spaces. From an interior design point of view, the living room has always been a “multipurpose” space, in that it is intended to accommodate a variety of activities as opposed to say a dining room where eating is the predominant activity. Keeping this in mind, living room furniture like a sofa, accent chairs, a coffee table and other occasional tables should be versatile, functional and stylish but above all it should be comfortable and fit your lifestyle.
Pick a Style
To create a living room that is cohesive and esthetically pleasing, pick a style that reflects your lifestyle and personal tastes. Like stopping in to take a look at the trendy boutique in the mall before you start in on your “real” errands? Perhaps contemporary or modern is the design style for you. Do you find yourself admiring the Victorian furniture in a period film? Then traditional style will be a good choice for you. If you like the clean lines and sleek look of modern or contemporary furniture but also find some aspects of traditional appealing, transitional style is ideal, because it combines both contemporary and traditional design principles for a look that is sophisticated yet inviting. There are no hard and fast rules: maybe you’ve decided on a contemporary style décor but need to find a place in your living room for the antique curio cabinet you inherited from your great aunt. By combining different styles together that work for you, you create a look and feel that makes your home unique.
Arrange the Furniture
Once you have bought your new living room furniture or have decided what furniture pieces you will include in your living room interior design, you are ready to move the furniture into place. Decide what will be your principal focal point in the room: a fireplace, French doors, a library wall unit or an entertainment center are all ideal candidates for a main focal point in a living room. Then arrange the living room furniture accordingly, starting with the largest piece of furniture. Your lifestyle will also determine how you will arrange the furniture: if you’re a family that enjoys regular movie nights, then it will probably be important to you that the sofa is directly opposite the entertainment center and that the coffee table is wide enough to hold a couple of bowls of popcorn and a number of beverages in addition to all of the remotes. You will also want to take into account traffic flow: this simply moves that you will have enough room to move around the room easily without bumping into things; ditto for being able to open and close the doors and drawers of case goods.
Accessorize!
The whole point of accessorizing is to make the room personable and cozy. In a living room or family the proper lighting is important. You will need a nice balance of table lamps for task lighting and an overhead fixture for ambient (general) lighting. Choose artwork that features colors already in the room, as well as being bright and colorful. When accessorizing a living room, you want to make it homey and comfortable without being cramped or cluttered. Think functional with style like baskets for added storage on a shelf or underneath a coffee table or console table. Place decorative candlesticks and one or two detailed picture frames on a fireplace mantel. These little touches will personalize your living room and make it “livable.”
If you are in the process of furnishing a new living room or updating your living room furniture, send me a picture of how it turns. Still not sure what style you should choose? Write in; maybe I can help.
