Two of the most common things we’re asked at The Home Stylist in regards to people’s Sitting rooms/Lounges/Living rooms are: How do we make it flow? Why doesn’t it feel right?
Making a living room flow is all about the placement of furniture and that all important ‘focal point’. The focal point will be the first thing that attracts your attention when walking in to the room (this shouldn’t be the TV). If there aren’t any distinguishing features in the room, maybe choose a favourite piece of furniture, piece of art or I hate to say it, a feature wall! One trend The Home Stylist loves is lining a cupboard with truly fab piece of wallpaper. We’re about to do this on a project where a client has a black Chinese cupboard with a lattice front, we’re going to put some fuchsia pink wallpaper on the inside, hopefully a photo to follow in a future blog!
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Have you got too much in your room? Is the furniture too big for the space? Have a look at these drawings and you’ll understand what we mean?
Draw a rough picture of your own space and see how the flow works, this will also tell you if you have too much furniture in your Living room (or too little). When you set up your space so that there is little room between the furniture and the entry way (as in photo 12) the space feels more closed off. However, when you create an open layout (Like 1A) the room feels much bigger. Remember the rule, keep furniture away from the walls to create the feeling of space. Make sure you have enough room to move about without bumping in to everything.
Placement of furniture also includes placement of rugs. The front two legs of your furniture should be on your rug as you’ll see from the “Do” pictures. What we often recommend and have done this a lot in our Staging Projects, when your favourite rug is too small for the space or the wrong shape, double rug it! This means get a larger, neutral rug that all the furniture can sit on and then place your favourite rug on top of that. This will also help create the feeling of luxury and depth as your’e bringing in all these textures.
Speaking of textures, fabrics and to answer the questions “Why does my room feel flat”? Read on of our past blog: https://thehomestylist.org/2017/03/why-does-my-room-feel-flat/
Cushions make up a big part in creating the look and adding depth to a room. Below is an example from one of our projects, the cushions add volume and really make the room pop (maybe you’d like to use cushions to make your sofa the focal point?).
Lighting we know is crucial to every room.
General lighting: This is a good all round level of lighting. This could be Pendant, Wall, Lamps etc. We always recommend these on a dimmer system where ever you can.
Task Lighting: This lighting is for specific functions within a space such as Desk lamps, down/up lights.
Accent Lighting: This is where you can use lighting to add the drama to your room.
One piece of furniture we often use to create or bounce more light is a mirror.
If you’d like some advice and help with your Living room, why not contact us for an Online Styling Consultation
