The Beginner’s Guide to Decorating Living Rooms
Since your living room is the space where you spend most of your time, it deserves a ton of love, care, and attention. This is where you welcome your guests and hang out with your family, and that’s why your living room needs to be perfect. In order to make that happen, lots of homeowners hire professional decorators and interior designers to spice up their living room. While that’s a great idea, it’s not exactly the most cost-effective way to achieve your goals. Instead, you might want to try doing this on your own, even if you have no decorating experience. If this is something you’d like to try as well, here are a few ideas you should look into.
Focus on Your Furniture
Your furniture is the main feature of your living room, and it’s something that can make or break your design. There are lots of ideas you can explore, depending on the size of your living room and your furnishing budget. If you’re not willing to spend a ton of money, you can always find second-hand furniture in thrift shops or yard sales, and spice it up. In addition to that, you can always clean your current furniture, add some blankets and pillows, and spend almost no money at all.
Another thing you need to pay attention to is the layout you pick for your living room. You need to give every member of your family enough maneuvering space, but still keep everyone close by. Of course, you can change your layout as often as you want, and keep rotating your furniture until you’ve found a combination that works for you.
Spice Up Your Lighting
Whether you host your parties in your living room or just use it for an afternoon nap, you need proper lighting. This can transform any space from ordinary to amazing, and spicing up your lighting on your own is easier than most people think. It’s all about finding the right ideas and combinations that will work for you the most. Luckily, there are lots of different choices out there – pendant lights, floor lamps, chandeliers, string lights, etc. – and you just need to find the right setup.
What you should do first, though, is to determine the amount of natural light in your living room. If you have huge windows or live in a hot region with lots of sunny days, your interior will probably be full of natural sunlight all day long. If that’s the case, you’ll probably need to minimize your lighting as much as possible and keep it subtle. Or just use candles and add a new dose of elegance to your living room.
Open Up This Space
This is one of the oldest ideas in the book, but it’s still an effective way to introduce a massive change to your living room. Instead of being stuck in a tiny space, you can open it up and make your entire home look nicer and more appealing than ever. Doing this might not be easy, and it’s going to require quite a lot of work and time, but it’s all going to be worth it in the end. Keep in mind that open-space layouts require less decorating and furnishing because they already look inviting and cool simply because they’re so open.
One of the ways to do so is by knocking down a few walls. The wall between your living room and your kitchen, for instance, isn’t always necessary, and it’s better to connect these two spaces together. Another alternative is installing those amazing barn doors that are easy to handle and can open up your space even more. They’ll save you tons of space and add more charm to your living room, so it’s a win-win idea you might want to look into.
Keep It Personal
Your living room is the reflection of yourself and your family, and if you want to show your guests what an amazing host you are, adding a few personal touches is a must. These things don’t have to be too big or expensive, but they need to look nice and tell a story. Whether it’s your kids’ DIY projects, your sports memorabilia or your travel souvenirs, using these items as décor can go a really long way.
However, you should also include your family in this process and ask everyone to share their ideas. Your living room is one of the spaces you all use together, so everyone needs to be included in the design process. Once you do that, your family will enjoy the living room more than before, and that’s always good.
Decorating your living room isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it’s not that hard either. Try to keep things simple and unique, and you’ll be able to do quite a lot in no time at all.