Inspirational Living Room Decor Ideas

Your living room should be more than just a place that your TV and your sofa is, and that you slob out in your pyjamas in on an evening. There are so many ways to create a great living room, and whether your taste in a great living room is elegant, cosy, sophisticated, or even historic, there are some great ways to elevate your living room, and to create a space that you can be proud of. In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of the most intriguing ideas to inspire your living room, no matter how much space you have to work with.

Indigo With Pops Of Yellow

Do you remember that 60-30-10 rule that we spoke about in our bedroom colour scheme ideas post? In this room, the 60% is the indigo, 30% is the yellow, and then the 10% is white, with the brown at 10% to break the rule, and to tie in with the brown and white just outside the sitting room area.

Repeat Accessories

Bringing in greenery, check. Bringing in green cushions, check. Repeating the greenery on the cushions… Check! It might not seem like a logical thing to do, but repeating accessories – or at least, the motif – means that there are ample opportunities to create a theme. In this example, the cactus on the table is what is being repeated, but whatever your favourite thing is – whether it is a llama, giraffe, or any other animal (made from ceramic!) – using that to inspire your other accessories can create a fun little touch to your living room. Just be sure not to go too overboard.

Make Outside The Focus

Well – we’re not sure what we can say about this one – but if you had a view like this, you really would make the most of a big picture window, wouldn’t you?! With a view like this one, you need only a comfortable sofa to spend time enjoying the bella vista.

Create A Cute Gallery Corner

Gallery walls full of photos are wonderful – they give you a place to show off your great shots, photos of family and more. A gallery wall doesn’t have to take up a whole wall though – you can use it to attract attention to a corner, or certain section of the room, such as this mini desk, or this vintage chair and bar cart.

The beauty of the gallery corner? It can work for almost any style of décor. We can see a young girl chatting with her friends on the iPad in the white walled example, and in the wooden wall room we can see a father having a quiet moment with a glass of bourbon poured from a whiskey decanter – or perhaps a mother at the end of the day!

Let Your Art Dictate Your Colour Scheme

We absolutely love a beach scene, and this small sitting area takes its colour cues from the ocean. Greys and shades of blue on the sofa, framed by a lighter shade of seafoam green – it all works perfectly together.

Create Zones Using Colour

In open plan spaces, rather than sectioning them off or creating walls, create zones using colour. This example is a great one, with the deep green in the dining area being echoed on the curtains and the grey being repeated on the sofa and the chairs.

Perfect neutrals

Neutral doesn’t necessarily mean magnolia. In this living room, there is little beyond the TV, yet it feels like a nice space – and perhaps with the addition of a house plant or two, the space is complete. Painted completely white, with light beige sofa and curtains which tie in with the beech wood on the staircase – this is a great neutral living room that would work perfectly in a rental home or a holiday let.

Use Curtains To Create A Cosy Feel

This living room and kitchen setup is practical and functional, but the cosy feel is brought in by the use of curtains that even go across the wall. Note also how the ombre effect wall creates a moodier tone without making the room feel too dark.

Go Bright And Bold

This living room is definitely not for the faint of heart, and there is a lot to unpack! The key to making a space this bold work is to have a very neutral background – which is why the pure white walls and ceiling, the black lighting fixtures, and the grey flooring are all important. The big, bold design features are all in the purple colour palette, so there is some cohesion despite the seemingly disorganised feel.

The Devil Is In The Detail

When you’re putting together the final details of your living room, don’t forget that the details count. Personalised touches – the things that have been in your family for generations, the unusual items that you found and fell in love with at a flea market or charity shop, right through to the designer pieces that you saved up for – they are all really important for making your space feel like your own.

Bring The Outside In

A really bold wall is a great way to create a talking point. You might use wallpaper, vinyl mural stickers, or if you’re blessed with artistic ability, then you might go freehand and paint your own directly onto the wall – but however you create a big, bold, jungle inspired look (or a beachscape, mountain vista, or wildflower meadow) be sure to balance the space by using furniture in solid colours, and coordinate accessories like lampshades, rugs, and cushions. If you can find house plants to complement your bold wall, then so much the better – long, lush stems of dried pampas grass in a tall vase would be a great low-maintenance addition here too.

White And Gold Perfection

This look is absolutely stunning, but our example here it is most definitely a grown-up home, rather than a family home! The white carries through the open plan space to the all-white kitchen, and the touches of gold on the sofa, coffee table, and the chandelier all tie together to create a magnificent space that is perfectly uncluttered, yet not boring.

Choose A Bright Sofa

Brightly coloured sofas are sometimes thought of as being less versatile than a neutral one, but the reality is that it with the right background, they can work in almost any spaces. This bright sofa doesn’t feel nearly as gaudy in the room as it could – and that’s because it has been tempered by the charcoal accessories.

Highlight Existing Features

If the room that you are intending to use as your living room hasn’t been plastered, or a certain part of it hasn’t, such as the chimney breast, look critically at it before you decide to book the plasterer. Can you make it part of the design of your space? The brick in both of these examples is pretty pleasing, and it really does seem like it would be a shame to cover it up. We love the idea of hanging a bike on a wall too – nothing like using clever storage as a design feature!

Create An Ombre Wall

The ombre trend has been around for a while now, and we can’t see it going anywhere anytime soon. It started in the hairdressing world, as a technique for applying colour that is shaded or graduated in tone – and designers everywhere soon caught onto it.

In this example, the darker grey at the bottom graduates to a white towards the ceiling, giving the effect that the room is taller than it is. The beauty of the ombre look is that it doesn’t have to be too exact, which means you can make it work with your space as you like.

Add A Conversation Nook

Conversation pits became popular in interior design around the 1950s, but today they’re seen as a little kitschy and certainly dated. While there are some designers that are attempting to bring those sunken areas back into fashion, the idea of a conversation nook is much more practical, since it can be used in different ways.

This little setup seems like an ideal place to gather and have an intimate conversation, share a cup of tea or a glass of wine. If you have the sort of architectural feature in your home that makes this possible, with careful planning you may even be able to utilise it as an extra bed – which could come in extremely handy during the holiday season.

Basement Living Room

The basement isn’t traditionally thought of as the main living room in a home, but if you have one then it might well have crossed your mind. Once it has been emptied of the detritus that tends to gather in the utilitarian areas of our homes and a great floor has been laid (assuming there isn’t one already!) it has the potential to be a place for the family to gather.

In basement living rooms, you may be able to work with the walls as they are – in our example below, the slate effect has been left untouched and works to create a cave-like feeling. Effective lighting is essential in a basement living room – LED spotlights, table lamps and sconces are ideal to ensure you can see your family and your guests!

The dark furniture plays to the darkness of the space, while the lighter floor keeps it from feeling too dingy – we can picture ourselves nursing a quiet (or perhaps not so quiet!) nightcap in this room.

Choose A Timeless Sofa

The Chesterfield sofa is a distinctive style of sofa, and can be found in homes across the world. They’re chosen for their classic look – and their ability to fit into almost every style of home. With careful use, a leather Chesterfield sofa will serve you and your family for years to come – and the beauty of the original ones is that they look better as they age.

If a real Chesterfield isn’t for you (they are made from leather, which is a complete no-no for some people) then you can get fabric versions, and plenty of modern interpretations on the classic look including bright colours and patterns. As you can see in the example we’ve chosen here, they can look even more comfortable and cosy than their leather counterparts.

Create A Sitting Room And Play Space For Kids

While a living room tends to be for the while family to enjoy, if you have the extra room, set up a space that kids can use as their own personal living room. Once play starts and the toys come out, there is little chance of it looking like this for long, but there will be a lot less chance of you stepping on a Lego in the family living room!

To help your children to keep their living room tidy, be sure to add plenty of storage solutions – lots of baskets and storage boxes that make it easy to pack their toys away quickly when it is time for bed.

Choose The Same Furniture In Different Colours

This little setup is most likely part of a show home in a store, but we love the idea of having the same piece of furniture in different colourways, to create a cohesive look without it being boring. You can switch out coloured accessories too – because the raspberry and teal in this shot are reasonably complementary, swapping the cushions would coordinate well too.

Café Au Lait Perfection

This larger living room space is much bigger than most living rooms in UK homes, but the styling can certainly scale up or down effectively. Shades of coffee, chocolate, caramel, and milk all blend together beautifully – and the palette can be applied to the space however works best. Cream sofas are quite a commitment, and can be labour-intensive to keep clean, even with slip covers!

Don’t forget that even when you’re working with a certain colour scheme, you can always bring greenery in – it lifts a space and makes it feel more alive.

Classic Recency Styling

The classic Regency era sitting room is definitely more of a formal space, but the greys and the detailed styling all ties together beautifully. While it doesn’t feel like a modern living room (and a TV would definitely feel out of place) the advantage to decorating a sitting room with Regency styling is that is timeless – and so won’t actually feel dated.

This is a pretty high maintenance sitting room – children with sticky fingers and pets are definitely not going to help keep the space pristine – but if you love all things Jane Austen (or perhaps Bridgerton has inspired you!) then this look could be right for your home.

Statement Fireplace

A beautiful fireplace is a great thing to have in your living room, whether it is a traditional fireplace, one that divides your living room from another section of your home, or one with a wood burning stove. If your fireplace has the potential to be the centrepiece of your room, then it is well worth making it so, since it will provide a cosy ambience, even when the fire isn’t lit.

Working fireplaces are wonderful, but they do take quite a lot of work. If you have gas in your home, then a statement fireplace with a gas fire is just as effective, without the clean-up, or alternatively electric fires and wood burning stoves can look stunning – and trust us, they have come a long way from the two bar electric fires that our grandparents had.