Top Tips for Living Room Design

The most important room for expressing your personality to the world is the living room. Whilst your bedroom may be a more truthful representation of your intimate nature, the living room, being where guests visit and you spend a great deal of time, allows you to project whatever aspect of your personality you like.

Firstly you should browse (be it online, in our home decor section for example) for a single item that you adore. This could be absolutely anything: a fabric for a sofa or chair, a carpet or flooring, or it could be the curtains or drapes, or even an accessory – a cushion, a rug, a throw. It doesn't matter what the item is; the only rule is to make sure you love it because the entire colour scheme for the room will be based off it.

Next Up - colour scheme. Take a long, hard look at the decor you've just selected. Consider how you would like the room to look in relation to them. Do you want a smooth pallette of colours that blend and create a peaceful wash in your living room, or would you rather work with variations on a single strong colour? The safest and easiest method is probably to choose 2 or 3 main, complimentary colours. Creating a feature wall by papering just one wall with an interesting patterned wallpaper is very fashionable at the moment. If you take this route, ensure that the other walls have a smooth colour to them that goes well with your feature wall. The skirting board should either compliment or match the wall colours.

When choosing paper for a feature wall, bear in mind that the wallpaper can be louder and more outre (if you wish) than it could be if you were papering the entire room. Whether covering one wall or the whole room, remember that smaller patterns create space and larger patterns can make rooms seem smaller.

The Third Step is all about texture. Your choice of wallpaper may have already led to some texture being in the room, however it is important to realise that texture creates layers in a room and is an interesting way of keeping your colour pallette flowing throughout without making your living room look boring. Ideas for textures? Try: velvet, suede, sheer, fake fur, flocked cotton, silk and chenille/crewel.

Step four: At this point in your living room designs, you should step back and make sure that the room isn’t going to seem overcrowded. A busy room is completely different to a loud room. Loud rooms can still be calming, but busy rooms just look messy and the design is flawed and unpleasant. Too much of a good thing can kill your design. The trick, we find, is to blend well. This blending can be achieved through offsetting small patterns next to large ones, placing stripes next to checks, and using neutral colours to break up louder tones. Equally, ensure that textures do blend and don’t over-do them. Less is more.

Our Tips

• Keep large items (sofas etc.) in plainer fabrics, especially in smaller rooms, to lower the risk of looking ‘busy’
• Consider where your windows are when curtains are bought. Don’t place a line of heavily patterned curtains next to one another. For long lines of windows, use calmer curtains.
• Create a mood board from things you tear out of magazines, or print off online.
• Use borders to pick up the colours of key focal points in the room.
• Place lighting at different heights in the room.
• Swap and change your lamps often, to avoid your room looking stale and boring.
• Custom made curtains, if you have the budget, allow you to pick all the fabrics and there is a noticable difference in effect.

Our Don'ts of Living Room Design

• This is your main entertaining room. Guests are meant to feel welcome, thus position seating in groups and use sofas. Don’t have chairs on their own.
• Hoard old cushions and rugs if repairable or coverable by new material. Otherwise bin them to prevent your room from looking tired.
• Don’t worry what others will think, design for yourself.
• Don’t be afraid of colours or patterns. Experiment and have fun.