A Guide to Decorating Your Living Room

Like a blank canvas, decorating a space can feel just like painting your own picture-perfect masterpiece! It gives you a chance to let your imagination run wild while your creative juices flow; a combination that often leads to one stunning end result! 

Decorating a living room is no different, of course, there is such a thing as having too many ideas (or in some cases, few or none at all). Some people become very indecisive while others feel overwhelmed when it comes to making big decisions. The fear of making the wrong choices that lead to one aspect of your living room decor clashing with the rest of the space or simply dragging it down can be daunting for homeowners who just want every stroke in their masterpiece to be perfect! Well, this is where we come in.

If you’re in search of the best tips and guidance on how to decorate your living room, you’ve come to the right place. Today, we are sharing 8 things to keep in mind when attempting to create your dream living room decor! Read on.

Get the Measurements Right

The first thing you need to do is get a good idea of the room dimensions along with measurements between things that can be described as ‘obstructions’ for the layout of the furniture and other decor pieces. This means measuring the space between doors, wall ends, windows, pillars, insets, etc. Be sure to draw a rough sketch of your living room on paper along with the respective measurements so that you can create a more accurate layout for the space.

Work on the Layout Early On

As tempting as it is to recreate a living room that you may have seen in a magazine or on the internet, there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to achieve it due to how differently your living room is designed. Nevertheless, you can still create a beautiful, dream-worthy living space of your own once you have finalised the floor plan. Take your time with this process, and only when you have perfected the layout as per the room’s measurements should you begin looking for furniture.

Consider How You Will Use the Living Room

While the living room is considered to be a multipurpose space in the house, some households have specific uses or visions for the room. For example, if you are keen on hosting a lot of dinner parties and entertaining often, you will need to choose your seating arrangement accordingly. Perhaps a few accent chairs and double-seaters would make more sense than a cozy couch that doesn’t seat many people but is great for a single person wanting to laze around and watch TV. 

Pick the Interior Decor Style

There are many different interior decor styles to choose from apart from the basics or most common ones which include, minimalist, modern, contemporary, rustic, industrial, Scandinavian, and bohemian. Our advice is to do your research on the many different styles and, of course, keep the rest of your home’s decor in mind as you wouldn’t want to create a completely different interior decor style for your living room which will clash with existing styles in the house.

Choose Your Seating Before Other Furniture

If you think about what the biggest furniture piece is in almost any living room, it’s always the couch. Therefore, interior decorators generally pick out the couch first, and decorate the rest of the room based on the type, size, colour, and style of the sofa. Bear in mind that household members typically spend most of their time sitting or laying down the sofa when in the living room and hence, comfort and functionality must not be compromised at the time of selecting the couch.

Choose the Colour Scheme in Accordance with the Decor Style

The last thing you want to do is have the colour palette of your living room clash with the style of the interior decor (yes, this happens among homeowners who aren’t familiar with specific interior decor styles!) For example, modern homes are finished in a black and white palette with accent greys included to break up the monotony. Of course, you are free to be creative and mix and match colours provided that the predominant colours match the interior decor style you have chosen.

Diversify with Textures

There are so many ways to add textures to your living room by way of interior decoration. Right from plush area rugs and fabric window treatments to throw pillows made from different materials and wooden accents; you can be as creative as you want to be! The great thing about texture is that it gives the room more depth and character which are two qualities every living room should have. Remember that you can also set the tone or ambiance for the room by picking textures that exude warmth, coziness, hardness, etc. 

Select Appropriate Lighting

Again, lighting fixtures can be mixed and matched to create a unique looking space that includes accent, task, and ambient lighting. While many stick to identical overhead lighting fixtures such as chandeliers, recessed lights, or semi-flush mount ceiling lights, you can very easily make bolder, stand-out choices like installing pendant lights in one corner while 2 or 3 flush-mount lights serve as your task lighting. The same can be done with table and floor lamps; don’t be afraid to look at different types of fixtures, styles and lampshades as long as they complement each other (and the room) while serving their respective purposes.

Unleash the interior designer in you and create the living room you have been dreaming of all this while! The information above is crucial in guiding homeowners through what they should and shouldn’t do when decorating the living room, thus ensuring that their masterpiece isn’t flawed but rather perfected right down to every last detail!