7 Tips How to Quickly Improve the Look of a Boring Living Room

Living room looks bigger with mirrored wardrobes. Cushions and a floral arrangement add colour and style. This is one of our recent redesign projects – a tiny living room brought to life again.

Does your living room look like your mother-in-law is the boss here? Are you renting a furnished apartment with leftover furniture? DO something about it, make your main space look great.

1. Choose the Main New Colour for Your Living Room

Oftentimes, boring living rooms are full of browns and beiges, all shades of timber, creamy whites and maroons.

Give your living room a hit of fresh colour. In 2020 Pantone has declared neutral blue the colour of the year. Other recently popular colours include bottle green, purple and violet. Many people like turquoise blue and this colour works well with a lot of other colours. Also, dark greys and charcoals are modern and yet very elegant choices. My personal favourites in the recent times are velvet navy blue and dark indigo.

Try a few colours, and decide which one/s you will apply to the remodelling of living room. Choose the main colour and your secondary colour. The secondary colour may be related to the colours you already have in your room, for example dusty pink for maroons or a shade of green for the greens already found in the room.

2. Declutter and Store Things in Beautiful Boxes

Clutter creates visual chaos. Get some storage, boxes and containers. Pack your things in to them and arrange them in an interesting structure that is easy to access when you need to find something. You will be surprised how much easier it is to not only find things, but also keep them clean, and move them from one place to another when they are stored in dedicated boxes.

These day there are plenty of aesthetically pleasing storage containers. Not only will they be functional, but they themselves will constitute a decorative element in your living room.

When shopping for your storage containers, look for ones in your new colour. As well as a couple of boxes in your secondary colour.

3. Feature Wall Art

Clean space, wall art painting, decorative cushions and a large pot plant make this living room a peaceful oasis.

What is the feature painting on the main wall? Is it some sweet landscape painted by your mum’s friend? Or is it a picture of flowers with apples and oranges? Lovely as they are, it may be time to move them elsewhere.

Find a large, huge or gigantic piece of wall art that will now become the focal point of your living room. It may contain your feature colour, but it doesn’t have to. Make sure this piece reflects your personality and you enjoy looking at it.

For the size, the bigger the better. As big as the space on the main wall allows. The main wall should be visible for guests entering your living room. It doesn’t have to be the wall opposite the entrance, it can also be a side wall but the one that is clearly in view.

Your wall art can be a painting, a poster, a display of items, or a wall sculpture.

4. Cushions Rule

We will use soft fabrics to uplift your room. Find a set of cushions in your main new colour. Look for them online or in homewares stores. Beware fabrics purchased online ted to look quite different in the real life. If you find something online, make sure you can return it if it doesn’t look as great in real life.

Your cushions should have great colour, as well as interesting texture or pattern. You may consider having a set of cushions in the same, almost identical colour, but some of them would be plush velvet, and others shiny, ruffed or lacy.

Use the design rules of shape and repetition to position the cushions around the room

5. Table decoration

What is on your table? Do you have a coffee table, or a dining table in your living room? What is on it? Is it a tablecloth your grandma would love?

Time to update the table. Nothing speaks modern and chic better than a burlap table runner.

On the table, display two or three pieces that look modern. It would be good if one of them contained your main new colour, and another one contained your secondary new colour.

A good arrangement may consist of a contemporary candle or tealight holder, a modern glass bowl and a chic vase. Tealight candles may be in your secondary colour. Get flowers in your main new colour. Or the glass bowl in your main colour.

6. Get a Large Potted Plant – or Two

Potted plants have become a must in recent years.

Consider buying some of the more popular plants, such as the Monstera Deliciosa, the Fiddle Leaf Fig, The Snake Plant, Draceana, or the Elephant Ear Plant.

To add visual impact, the plants should be large. Consider buying two of them. Larger plants may be expensive in shops, but try finding them on gumtree if you want to save money.

Get two oversized pots for your plants. They probably shouldn’t be identical, but matching, such as the same style, one bigger and the other smaller. Or two different ones that complement each other. Or two plain ones and burlap bags to put them in. Burlap works wonders.

One more thing: when you buy the pots, make sure they are suited for indoor use and you have saucers for them too. You don’t want a puddle on your floor.

Place the potted plants next to each other. Look for space in your living room that is cosy but visible. The plants should add to the ambience of your room, they are not the featured display.

7. The Magic of Mirrors

Mirrors bring light, life and action to any room. Consider adding a wall mirror in your living room. Position it in a smart way, so that it reflects the beautiful things, such as your potted plants or a nice green view from a window.

For modern rooms, I like mirrors with frame also made with mirrored glass. This way the mirror reflects light in many angles. Mirrors in decorative heavy frames are lovely, but if you don’t want the mirror to be the main piece of visual art in your room – you should probably choose a more modern one. Please remember: modern doesn’t mean plain. Go for angles, original shape or a combination of mirrors.

Look in the mirror, and your updated living room is now the most beautiful it has ever been.

Happy decorating

Xena