Decorating your living room should be a true reflection of who you are and what you use the space for. Your living room should be filled with trinkets, treasures, photos, and memories of everything important to you. Too often living rooms can be very bland and uninspiring. You have to be careful that your living room doesn’t end up looking too industrial and clinical. There are lots of things you can do to make a room stand out in an instant like colorful glass pendant lights, while there are also things you should avoid at all costs like:
Trying to Incorporate too Many Things
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It is true that a room should represent the occupier but trying to mix too many themes into one room is a disaster. If you like several themes and want to use all of them in one room then try and focus on one statement style or a piece from each theme you want to use. Just focusing on one piece will allow you to incorporate lots of ideas without it looking like a mess. Trying to do too much in one space (no matter the size) will leave the room looking a bit messy and chaotic.
Not Utilizing your Rooms Natural Light and Orientation
Unless your living room is windowless you should design your room around the light that comes in. Having dark or heavy window dressings on a North-facing window won’t work too well, as your space will constantly feel like it is in darkness. On the flipside having too much light in a room, for example, using light-colored curtains on South-facing windows can leave you with a room that feels more like a sunroom than a living room and it may put you off spending time in that room.
Forgetting the accessories
Accessories do make a room, they can bring themes together and can make a statement about who you are and what your style is. Be brave enough and confident enough to add accessories. As seen on simply cushions.com.au, colorful cushions can be a gorgeous detail to bring your old sofa back to life, or you may wish to use eye-catching wall light fixtures with feature mirrors. Failing to make a statement and just going with a plain and safe neutral color scheme might be OK now, but you will regret the decision later down the line when you see every house on your street has done the same.
Failing to Make it Functional
If you have family and visitors frequently, and you add in pets and your own children running around then you will want a room to be functional and easy to maintain. Quite often functionality and style don’t go hand in hand, so make sure when you are designing your living room that it is practical and fit for everyday use. Stylish items that are sleek in design might look good now, but will they stand the test of time. Will they still look good in 6 months’ time? If the answer is an outright NO then don’t waste your time getting them in the first place as you will only be wasting your money.
Not Making and Utilizing a Mood Board
A mood board or theme board should be the first thing you do when decorating any room. On your board, you can put together your ideas, thoughts, color schemes, and swatches. You can then work on pulling them all together to create a room that pops with style. Trying to decorate without a board will be difficult, especially if you are wanting to incorporate several different styles and themes. Seeing snippets of everything you want to include within a room will give you a quick glimpse of how the finished room will look and feel. If you think something is a little off or not as you imagined it to be then at this stage you can change it. Trying to change things further down the line will ultimately cost you in terms of time and money, and it will be more hassle.
To get the most out of any space it is important to see how you use the space at the moment. Are there certain chairs or sofas that are heavily used that just cannot be replaced? Or does the TV have to stay where it is due to its connections? It is also important to remember to create a budget as early on in your renovation as possible, as everything has a cost and unless you have an unlimited budget then you should create a budget for your living room, or you could end up spending more than you want to.
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