Home Decor Tips: The Living Room

Unless the recent change of seasons has caused you to hibernate in your bedroom, chances are when you’re at home you spend much of your waking time in the living room. If such is the case, you want it to look good.

You want it not only to look good for yourself but to impress guests (we want the same thing). Your house is an extension of yourself, and the way you choose to decorate it can show a lot about who you are.

Through our experience selling furniture, we’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out how to use your furniture wisely to make the spaces it occupies look the best they possibly can.

You know how they say that a picture says 1,000 words? Well, we think a living room sofa and other furniture choices do, too. In other words, your living room furniture sums up your home’s style, and if you think it’s time for an update, check out these tips to help you plan more effectively:

Trends Come and Go

Timeless, classic decor is always relevant. Get the most life out of your living room by keeping it simple and traditional. That doesn’t mean you can’t implement trendy touches in here and there—in fact, we recommend that. Just don’t go all out fully remodeling your living room to align with a style that you won’t like in two or three years. Doing so just makes the homeowner look insecure. Mixing and matching timelessness with trendiness is very tasteful if you do it right.

Keep the main pieces of the room classic—sofa, chairs, coffee table, and entertainment center. Then accessorize with things that suit your style at the moment; pillows, area rugs, items to display on the mantelpiece, candles, vases and whatever other relatively inexpensive items that can be easily replaced as your tastes shift.

Alternatively, have only real mementos and collectibles, shifting their display by theme or season: holiday, spring, etc. Store items not on display in an accent cabinet.

Use Color Wisely

Remember the relative or co-worker with the loud clothes? Colors can scream at you and your guests if you don’t choose wisely. Generally, to present a higher class statement, start your living room palette with neutral colors. Think earth tones, maroons, grays… almost the same scheme as the clothes in a finer men’s store. These not only calm the people in the room but form the perfect background for the spots of bright color you DO showcase in your living to add what designers call “pop.”

Maybe you have a gray reclining sofa with muted red pattern accent pillows, a different patterned oversize storage ottoman in an elegant neutral taupe, and a bright canary-yellow vase on the table next to them. Set that all against a pastel blue area rug.

That’s just one idea, but the options are limitless. Just keep the big stuff classic, and from there feel free to play with ways to accent them.

Of course we hope these suggestions get you started on the living room you want. That said, we understand are many different personality types, and a different style to suit each of them. Just remember: keep things generally simple and stay true to who you are. If you follow that mantra, your home will look stunning in no time. And if you need the furniture to make it happen, our St. Stephens Church, VA store is here to help.