5 Living Room Design Tips for a Stylish Look

The living room is often the centerpiece of a home, and its design sets the tone for the rest of it. It’s also the room mostly used to entertain guests and spend quality time with your family, which means it should be a room that sends a message to everyone who enters it.

Making that room stylish and well put together doesn’t have to be an expensive task. In fact, it’s enough to focus on small touches that will pop against otherwise mundane furniture and color choices.

Simplify

A large living room loses much of its appeal if it’s cluttered. This is true even when all the pieces are carefully chosen and when they mean something to you. Much more could be accomplished in terms of style with a minimalistic approach to decorating and with displaying only a few of the best pieces at all times.

The simplicity isn’t only shown in the number of items you have in the room, but also in the color palette and overall aesthetic. You want to avoid monochromatic rooms because they tend to get boring, but you should also avoid using too many colors at once. A two-color living room is, therefore, the best solution in most cases.

No (visible) TVs

TVs tend to dominate the living room. At this point, TVs are much more than just one appliance; they are a part of a whole entertainment system. They have become rather noticeable in most living rooms, even to the point that they are the centerpiece, and most of the time spent in the room is spent watching TV instead of making conversation.

There are two ways to change this. The first one is not to have a TV in the living room and instead set up a separate media room for that purpose only. The second one is to hide the TV in one of your living room walls. The frame of the TV could blend with the gallery wall and the speakers could easily be hidden around the room.

Artwork

Most of the time, living room walls are underused even when you have some artwork hanging around. If the room is designed with a minimalistic streak, empty walls become even more noticeable. One of the ways to add a striking feature to your living room is to dedicate one wall to artwork entirely.

Finding interesting artwork online gives you a chance to experiment with styles and different aesthetics. It’s fine to be bold and to choose an art piece that people will notice, but have in mind that the room should still reflect your own aesthetic and a sense of style.

Lighting

Design living room lighting can be rather tricky, but it’s also what brings the whole room together and turns it into an installation of sorts. The key to accomplishing this is using a variety of different light sources and thus giving yourself options in terms of ambiance.

Start with making sure you have enough natural light. If this isn’t an option for you, you’ll need to get some overhead lights. The rule about them is that you simply can’t have enough, and it’s better to dim some of these lights than to have an under-lit room. Task lights also need to be spread across the room based on how you plan to use it.

Add curvy lines

It’s important to break the pattern of boring straight lines that often form in living rooms that have traditional furniture pieces and a minimalistic approach to design. Don’t hesitate to add a few curvy pieces that will stand out and serve as art pieces as much as furniture.

This could be a small coffee table or a sofa, or even just a small sculpture that’s noticeable amongst the rest of your furniture. It’s also a good idea to make this piece stand out in terms of its color and size. The living room is about more than just functionality, it should also look impressive.

A living room can be made to look stylish without too many expensive furniture and art pieces. It’s all about settling down on an aesthetic and finding a few items that will convey your sense of style.