Ways to Style Your Living Room
The living room is the place where family and friends gather; the heart of the home.
A comfortable, welcoming and versatile space, it caters to a variety of occasions, from hosting children’s play to entertaining loved ones. At the same time, it’s the ideal area to display your personal style or sentimental pieces while reflecting the mood of the season. Here, we take a look at some styling ideas to make the living room your favourite space in the home.
Consider how the room will be used
When styling a room, it’s important to keep in mind how it will be used. For families with small children, the living room is often a space for play, while older families will likely use it to spend time together. When hosting a gathering, it’s the room where guests can chat over a drink before and after meals, so add a timber grazing board along with a carafe set to your coffee table or sideboard to create a welcoming atmosphere. If you don’t entertain often, your priority may be to make the living room a cosy space to relax and wind down. Drape throws over seating to create a welcoming warmth while adding touches of colour and texture, or try layering cushions of varying shapes and sizes to build depth and visual interest.
Use decor to create zones
Consider the ways you might use the room and whether furniture needs repositioning or updating. Move the couch away from the wall to make the room look bigger, or group the couch, side tables and seating such as scatter cushions together to encourage conversation when guests visit. If catering to multiple groups, floor coverings, ottomans and cushions can also be used to create ‘zones’ within the space. For those short on space, try incorporating storage such as shelving, boxes, lidded chests and baskets into your styling—this is a way to add different heights and textures while also serving a practical purpose.
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Update the palette of the room
As the seasons change, you may want to refresh the room to reflect the colours of the outdoors. The easiest way to do this is to update the palette and fabrications of pieces such as cushions, throws and rugs. In winter, choose rich tones like wine and chocolate in velvet, shearling, chunky knits and other plush, tactile materials that create a sense of comfort and warmth. Rather than using matching fabrications, try mixing different textures for visual interest and depth.
As spring arrives, switch heavier fabrications out for linen, cotton and other lighter textiles in airy neutrals or perhaps soft natural shades of green and blue. Texture is still important, but as the weather warms, aim to create a sense of lightness and ease. You may even like to swap out heavy curtains for something in an airy fabric that lets the sun in and makes the room feel brighter and more open.
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Create a frame wall
Artwork and decor items can also be changed out to reflect the seasons or your personal taste. If you have a frame wall, consider swapping out the images, the frames, or both, so that the display features darker, richer colours or heavier frames in winter and lighter hues in the warmer months. The composition of the frames also changes the look of a room—regular spacing of similar-sized frames makes a more formal impression, while random positioning or using frames of different types and colours creates a casual air. Experiment with various arrangements to achieve your desired result.
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Add smaller decor items as accents
Ceramic and glassware items such as vases, bowls and ornamental objects add accents of colour and light and are useful styling tools when space is limited. When choosing these decor pieces, be sure to consider their form, as geometric, angular shapes make a sharper impression than soft, organic or irregular objects. Vases are a versatile option as they can be displayed on their own or styled in multiple ways depending on your choice of florals—large, bold native flora; delicate foliage in subdued tones or even bare branches all create completely different impressions.
Books and decorative objects on the coffee table can also convey your personal style and taste, both in their selection and arrangement. You might choose items based around a theme such as travel, and select a coffee table book on a favourite destination to sit alongside pieces sourced on a memorable trip; display a sense of nostalgia via family scrapbooks, photo albums and mementoes or choose your favourite novels alongside a bowl full of trinkets that hold special meaning.
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Bring the outdoors in
In addition to floral arrangements, consider using greenery to enhance living spaces. While the needs of the plant should be kept in mind—air temperature, humidity, sunlight, amount of watering required—the large variety of indoor plants available means that there’s something to suit every taste. Whether it’s a group of little cacti placed on a bookshelf, vines trailing from individual pots around the room, or a large, leafy plant positioned on the floor in a corner, indoor greenery adds unique character and a sense of calm to living rooms. Together with planters, pots and plant stands, they are an effective styling element that can easily update decor.
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