Home | Home Improvement Tips | Designing Your Living Room
Designing your living room can become easily overwhelming when you are faced with a big open space. Whether you are looking to make a dramatic change or some simple small tweaks, here are some tips and tricks to help you design your living room and look good doing it.
Proportion
Proportion is one of the key elements of interior design. Many designers use the golden ratio. This means that furniture arrangements are most aesthetically pleasing when kept to a 2:3 ratio. Use your perception to find the proper proportions when designing your living room. As you arrange your space, pay attention to how everything makes you feel. If something feels wrong, play with your furniture until it feels better. For example, you should look for a coffee table that is 2/3 the length of your couch. and a couch that is 2/3 the length of an area rug. Center all of these objects and you may find the aesthetics to be very pleasing to your eye.
Pushing everything against a wall
Pushing your couches against the wall can at first make an area seem much larger and spacious, however, it limits the amount of usable space and creates an unbalanced feeling. You want to pick a focal point in your living room. This may be a television, a fire place, or even built-in storage units. Once you have your point of interest, group your furniture. You may opt to have two chairs facing a long couch with a coffee table that lines up with a mantle. You could position chairs so that they are facing the TV. If you have enough space to create an additional area that has its own function, like a reading nook, arrange those items in a grouping of their own. The important thing is that every piece of furniture feels as though it was purposefully placed to work with the rest of the items in the room.
Too much function, not enough aesthetic
Living rooms have become more “lived-in” now than they have in the past. They’ve also fallen victim to prioritizing function over beauty to the extent that the space feels unfinished.When your space is lacking that aesthetic touch, effective layering is the key to bringing it back to life. This includes using wall paint or coverings, textiles, furniture, lighting, decorative items, and pictures or art. Look around your living room and add layers as needed. Choose items that come in a variety of shapes, sizes and textures, so you’ll also see the benefit of additional visual interest.
A giant collection of stuff
Living rooms can become collections of the design elements we’ve collected over the years rather than a single, definitive style statement. Whether it’s a result of combining households or several moves, a touch of unity is usually all it takes to pull even the most eclectic design together. Color is your secret weapon. Use a vast majority of items that fall within the same color palette. Even if you’re not a fan of matching that much, adding a few coordinating shades can help pull the room together.
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