Tips for Redesigning Your Living Room

The structures of most homes center around the living room, as this is the area where you can relax and converse with others in comfort. Since it is a space that you spend much of your time in, the atmosphere that you craft in the living room greatly influences the style and tone that the rest of your house follows. Thus, you should seek to realize an arrangement there that brings you delight and contentment. You may currently be dissatisfied with the way your living room looks and feels, though, either because it has remained the same for a long time or because you did not have a clear idea of what you wanted in the past. If so, you can find guidance from our tips for redesigning your living room.

Make an Overarching Layout Plan

Preceding any purchases, it is prudent to chart your course with an overarching plan for your living room’s layout. Identify any points in your present living room that are inconvenient or that you believe need improvement. Perhaps one of your chairs tends to get in the way as you enter and exit the area, or a shelf is crammed awkwardly near a sliding glass door. Take note of these details so that you don’t overlook them in your redesign.

Alongside such considerations, think about how you want to use your living room. What activities do you tend to do there, and what needs must the living room fulfill? You might like to settle into a comfortable position and read in the evenings. Knowing this could inform where you position your chairs, sofa, lamps, and side tables. If your family is large or you like to entertain many guests, you would take this into account so that your living room doesn’t feel overly cramped and provides ample space for sitting and walking.

Restructure the Room With Rugs

Rugs may be flat, but they have the power to define boundaries in a room where walls and other barriers are absent. This is because their edges act as separators between the section of the floor where they lay and the rest of the space around them. Moreover, you place furniture around rugs which further delineates where the focus lies. For these reasons, you can modify the living room substantially based upon where you place rugs and how you size them.

In a home where the living room, kitchen, and dining room blend together, you can distinguish where exactly the living room starts and ends with a rug. Getting a large rug that fills up a notable portion of the floor can add a greater sense of spaciousness to any home regardless of its floor plan, as well. Whatever rug you settle on, make sure that it can at least encompass the front legs of your seating so that it can connect them visually.

Switch Up and Alter Furniture Pieces

Furniture is the component of your living room that you will directly interact with the most. Therefore, another tip for redesigning your living room is to pay attention to their looks. When making alterations to this aspect of the space, you have two options to choose from. You can either completely switch out a piece or adjust its outer appearance. Go with the first choice when you have a furniture piece that is marred by unrepairable damages or that is inconsistent with the new style you are trying to create. For example, you may replace a plain, backless shelf with a fuller one that incorporates carvings if you are transitioning from a minimalistic aesthetic to a more traditional one.

There are many situations when you don’t need to get rid of your old furnishings, however. The same wooden drawer can fit a changed color scheme and mood with an even coat of paint and a new set of hardware. You can also adapt your sofa and chairs by selecting upholstery with hues and patterns that mesh well with your revamped living room. If your seating is not conspicuous in its form, it’s entirely possible to refresh it by removing its coverings and exchanging them.

Paint the Walls and Use Wallpaper

You may think of the walls as less critical to your living room because they play a more supportive role than eye-catching decorations and furniture. It is indeed true that numerous people settle with neutral beige and white walls and don’t give much thought to them thereafter. This is not to say that those kinds of walls are inherently bad, though. They are popular in the first place because they work well with many styles. Rather, you should know that your walls have the potential to affect the space more deeply when you are willing to consider all the possibilities available to you.

Depending on the ambiance you want and the color palette that you’ve decided on, you can paint your walls in other tones to better mesh with your décor. Maybe you live in a cold climate and want your living room to be warm and cozy. You could make the walls dark brown to match with your stone fireplace and wooden furniture. Darker walls can also contrast pleasingly with décor that is predominantly lighter in color. On the other end of the spectrum, you may want your living room to feel upbeat. You can fill it with levity by painting the walls in light blue or green tints.

Besides paint, you can also utilize wallpaper to transform your living room walls. On top of being conscious about the wallpaper’s coloration, you must deliberate over which patterns would complement your space the best. Elaborate floral or damask wallpaper could impart elegance to classical European-style arrangements while uniform stripes and animal-based patterns could up the eccentricity of the room. You don’t need to put up wallpaper on every wall, either. Instead, you could cover one select wall with it in order to give that portion of the living room more interest. After all, each home should have its own unique style; you can easily achieve this by adding an accent wall that speaks to your aesthetic interests.