Things To Avoid When Styling Your Living Room
Your living room should be a place to relax, for the family to gather and relax, and to enjoy the company of friends. It should be somewhere you can entertain guests but also be able to tone it down with a good movie and a bucket of popcorn. So what exactly are the things to avoid when styling your living room?
We take a look at some top faux-pas to help you when you’ve got the bug for some styling. Creating a cosy space doesn’t have to cost the earth or take forever to achieve.
Furniture along walls
Strangely enough, moving furniture up against the wall can actually make the room appear smaller. This is especially the case when all walls in the room have furniture against them creates a stuffier space with no breathing room. Have a crack at pulling your larger pieces away from the wall and generate the illusion of space by adding area behind furniture. By carefully planning the layout of the room, you can bring consideration to conversation areas with armchairs and occasional tables. Or you can use a styled console behind a sofa to bring a sense of depth.
Clutter all around
Every well-styled living room has storage, and ample room to move. The more you can hide without keeping junk around, the more a room can breathe. You don’t need to create an absolute minimalist style to avoid clutter, but you can certainly create photo walls or console tables with your favourite framed family memories without over crowing the space. Keep decorative items to a minimum but still allow your personality to shine through with the pieces you do choose to use.
Nothing on the floor
Sometimes it’s hard to know just what’s missing from the room. Chances are it could be a floor covering. Rugs are an essential style staple and a lack of rugs can easily make a room feel empty or cold. A room looks far more complete with colour, texture or pattern on the floor. Rugs can happily sit on carpet or floorboards, as long as you’re not adding too many contrasting textures or patterns which can make a room feel too busy. You can create zones in the room with smaller rugs under a coffee table, an armchair or under the window beneath your console table.
Rugs should definitely match the size and style of your space. Sometimes an enormous rug that sits underneath all your furniture pieces can bring a massive sense of comfort to a room. It also provides balance and can make the room seem larger.
Matchy matchy matchy
Trying to blend in too many different styles certainly won’t give you a beautiful room, but neither will trying to match every single piece perfectly together. These days matching a few pieces like a coffee table and entertaining unit are completely fine. But make sure you’re adding in some colour to break up the uniformity that matching furniture and decor colours can easily create.
Where’s the tv
The cardinal sin of tv placement is anywhere it blocks light, or you can see the back of it. These days most people have taken to mounting their television on the wall which instantly creates space below and beside it. If you can’t get your tele on the wall, you’ll need to make sure your tv unit underneath it is ample enough in size to avoid the tv looking ridiculous and out of the rooms proportion. Large isn’t always important! Try to make other pieces in the room and your style the focal point, rather than technology.
Drab and dreary
Many living rooms severely lack colour and vibrancy. While we don’t want every colour of the rainbow present, it’s also not ideal to have everything in mission brown. If you’re keen on a simplistic look like whites, dark hues, monochromatic, or certain styles like Hamptons or New York glam, you can bring in colour through soft furnishings like cushions. Otherwise you can add colour through wall art, plants and pots, or floor rugs.
Larger than life
Carefully consider the size of your room before you make purchases and consider what’s actually going to fit. You don’t need to engage every spare centimetre of space to adequately complete your room. In fact, the opposite is much better. More space equates to a more airy feel and won’t make you or your guests feel closed in. Don’t buy a gigantic 10 seater couch if you’ve got no room left for a coffee table and other styling essentials. Equally, don’t buy two single armchairs if they’re going to look like they take an hour to walk across to. Being thoughtful about size and realistic spacing will make a huge difference to the end result.
Remember, House & Garden stocks an enormous range of homewares and furniture designed to help you style a beautiful living room. No matter what your style is, we can help with things to avoid when styling your living room and bring life and spacious character to your home.
