Decorating a Small Living Room
Decorating a Small Living Room: Lose Some Furniture. Opt for a love seat instead of a giant couch. Or keep one chair instead of two. Hide an extra table in your bedroom. Free up space by relocating (or discarding) furniture for which there’s no room.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Look for “tables” that have built-in storage. I often suggest the use of a flat-topped chest as a coffee table or the use of a low bookshelf as a side table. If you insist on keeping a lot of things in your living room, pedestal tables or other furniture without dual functionality may inhibit you.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Orient vertically – but do so sparingly. Rather than sprawling horizontally, you may need to stack some items and arrange things upward. If this helps you keep the living room tidy and compact, great! Just don’t go overboard, or else the room will have that top-heavy, closing-in-on-you feel – the very thing you’re trying to avoid in the first place.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Replace table and floor lamps with wall-affixed lighting, or select the right bulbs so that your existing overhead lighting becomes more user-friendly. If you do keep table lamps, find space-friendly models with small or no shades (check out Ikea for suggestions).
Decorating a Small Living Room: Rethink Windows. If you have more than one window and don’t mind a dip in the amount of natural light, you may be able to break a conventional rule and block a window with something large. While it may or may not work, a bookcase or vertically oriented entertainment unit in front of a window is at least an option.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Consider modular furniture. Depending on your style, a foldable butterfly chair or a foldable extra table might be appropriate, as they can be condensed when not in use. Once again, I tout Ikea for items of this nature, as they tend to carry attractive yet practical space-conscious furnishings.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Paint the walls a light color. Navy, maroon, olive, or brown walls will almost certainly make the room feel tighter and more cramped. Softer tones – maybe a light beige, a muted yellow, or a powder blue – can help the space feel more open.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Do away with bulky curtains, if you have them. These days, many people use shades or blinds without curtains, and this can help the room feel more open and may even gain you an inch or so of pass-by room if your windows reside along the room’s egress.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Avoid large wall art. Trade the large prints for a few smaller ones. By exposing more wall and shrinking the size of anything you hang, you create a subtle feeling of openness.
Decorating a Small Living Room: Don’t “kitty korner” items. While it’s a great way to create angles and use up space in a huge room, it’s not space efficient in a small living room.
Decorating a Small Living Room: If you work creatively with cords and outlets, you may be able to gain a few extra inches by putting an entertainment unit (or whatever you want to call it) flush against the wall. For example, position the outlet just “outside” the bounds of the item or find a way to hide an outlet strip within shelving or cabinets, if possible.
