The living room is a vital space within a home, serving as a gathering place for guests enjoying tea or cocktails, families unwinding at the end of the day, and for engaging in conversations. While not everyone may have a large living room, even expansive spaces can feel cramped with improper interior design choices. Whether due to a congested floor plan or oversized furniture, a living room can quickly feel restricted.
Fortunately, there are ways to prevent this feeling, creating an illusion of spaciousness, brightness, and airiness even in a limited square footage. Below, you’ll find expert advice from interior designers:
Expert Profiles:
– Prudence Bailey, founder and principal designer of Prudence Home & Design
– Elly Poston, founder and principal designer of Elly Poston Interiors
Avoiding Overdecorating:
It’s easy to overwhelm a living room with excessive décor. While it’s natural to want to showcase cherished items like candles, artworks, and collectibles, it’s important not to clutter the space. Interior designer Elly Poston suggests not feeling compelled to adorn every wall with art and advises giving the eye space to rest. Simplifying surfaces by focusing on a few meaningful or larger décor pieces is recommended by Prudence Bailey. Poston also recommends seeking inspiration in design magazines for curated collections rather than overcrowding the room.
Correct Lighting Choices:
Lighting plays a crucial role in a living room’s ambiance. To prevent a claustrophobic feel, interior designer Bailey emphasizes the importance of warm and soft lighting, avoiding bright, cool-toned lights that can shrink the space visually. Both Bailey and Poston advise against using overhead lighting, suggesting a layered lighting approach with a mix of ceiling lights, floor lamps, table lamps, and wall sconces to eliminate dark corners. Dimmers are also recommended for controlling brightness and setting the desired mood.
Selecting Appropriate Furniture:
While large living rooms can accommodate sizable furniture pieces, most rooms struggle with balancing such hefty proportions. Opting for furniture with legs can create a sense of openness by allowing light to pass through, according to Bailey. Poston points out the challenge of finding appropriately scaled furniture for smaller living rooms in historic homes, recommending the avoidance of overstuffed sofas and large tables. Exploring thrift stores for vintage pieces can also be a viable option.
“Upholstered furniture can be revived and brought back to life,” states Poston. “The proportions are nearly always perfect, and the quality of fabrication is usually far superior to the frames made nowadays.”
Every living room requires a rug for both aesthetic appeal and sound control, but the specific size and shape chosen can significantly impact the overall layout. Poston advises, “Rugs should appropriately fill the room so that all—or a majority—of the furniture can comfortably sit on top of it. For many of our projects, this involves custom cutting less expensive materials, such as sisal, and layering more specialized rugs on top. A small rug can be a visual disaster!”
A living room painted in a deep, jewel-tone hue can exude beauty, but caution is advised regarding the amount used and what it is paired with. Bailey warns, “Certain color palettes and choices can make your living room appear smaller or more cramped due to light absorption, perception impact, or visual enclosure of the space. I prefer to balance light and dark in small rooms.”
If you are drawn to a moody dark gray or an earthy brown, incorporating them sparingly is suggested, especially if your space is on the smaller side. “You can utilize these colors on a feature wall, ceiling, furniture accents, or décor, and offset them with lighter tones in other areas,” adds Bailey. “For example, a dark ceiling paired with light walls can create the illusion of increased room height, as dark colors have a tendency to make objects recede.”
(Source: Martha Stewart)
