Decorate a comfortable living room

If decorating doesn't come naturally, and there are plenty of people who find it difficult to select colour and arrange furniture, setting up a beautiful living space can be a nightmare. In a living room you want to create a space that is comfortable and welcoming, so let's take a look at a few designer tricks to achieve this.

 

First off, you don't need to buy new furniture to make your living room feel more welcoming. In this feature we decorated a living room to show you how easy it can be if you give the project careful thought and consideration.

ABOVE: White is nice and has its place in every decorating scheme. This living room is not one of them. The grey lounge suite and dark furniture stand out and don't seem to belong - the white tub chair disappears into the background and the blue rug simply doesn't fit in at all. The window is also the main feature, and while a beautiful view is definitely something to frame, the blinds remain closed and don't offer any view whatsoever. Time to change things around.

BELOW: Re-arranging furniture, adding colour and accessories are just a few ways to up the level of a room without an expensive trip to the furniture store. The only item bought for the living room was a new, neutral rug and a few select accessories. The living room was also painted in two colours, a soft brown and pale green.

For the decorating-challenged, choosing colour for painting a room is not a process that comes naturally and there are ways to have some professional help without having to spend a fortune. Using the colour-stripe in the cushions as a starting point, visit your local paint store to pick out the perfect tint.

Playing around with paint swatches allows you to experiment and play around with colour before you buy the paint.

 

 

Originally, the sofa was flat against the one wall and many decorating-challenged tend to take this layout as the safe route. Don't be scared to move things around a bit and add a dash of excitement to the project. By placing the sofa in front of the window we have allowed more space to incorporate a few more accessories and not be hindered by the French doors.

Two ottomans have been pinched from another room and recovered in a yellow, gold and brown fabric to tie in with the new colours in this room. Re-purposing furniture from other rooms is another way to add a fresh, new look to a space without spending money on new furniture.

BELOW: The lonely tub chair has been incorporated into the seating arrangement as a comfortable place to sit and relax or to sit and join in the conversation.

Moving around the furniture meant that the wall where the sofa was originally placed was empty. Since this is the first wall you see when you enter the room, it offers the perfect opportunity to create a feature, and this was done with some do-it-yourself shelves that would for adding a few favourite accessories to be put on display.

To build this shelf unit you can use inexpensive laminated pine shelving and PAR that you will find at your local Builders Warehouse. To make the shelves look like floating shelves, they are mounted to the wall with steel angle brackets at the back of individual sections. Click here for instructions on how to make the shelves.