Most people these days will find affording their dream home a challenge and might have to compromise on space in order to have a place to call their own. If your home is on the smaller side, odds are your living room is where you’ll spend most of your time, so you’ll want it to have a relaxed and inviting ambience. Working with what you’ve got, there are some great small living room design ideas that you can use to make the most out of it.
Below are some of the great small living room design ideas
1. Visualise before your start
When you don’t have much space to start with, you’ll want to think about the look and aesthetic you’d like to achieve before you start purchasing furniture or moving items. Pinterest, blogs, friends, cafes and home living stores are great sources of inspiration for design and styling. DIY can be a lot of fun, but if it’s not your cup of tea, you can seek out an interior designer or handyman on Airtasker to help you out.
Source: Decoholic
2. Modular lounges
If you don’t have the luxury of space for a big three-piece sofa set, consider a modular lounge. Modular lounges are great because you can purchase different shapes and sizes and configure them in to a variety of ways to fit the room. Just make sure that if you’re getting a chaise, you think about what side of the room the longer piece will sit on. Choosing lounges with a lightweight appearance will also help a small living room appear bigger.
Source: Coco Lapine Design
3. Furniture as storage
Save space in the living room by getting a coffee table that doubles as a storage unit. Use it to store remotes, DVDs, magazines and other gadgets. A small side table with internal shelving will also be a functional, space saving addition to the room when placed at the end of the couch.
Source: Dagmar Bleasdale
4. Mounted entertainment systems
Wall mounted flat screen televisions will save you plenty of space, and they’re becoming more cost effective. Another option if you’ve got the cash to splash is setting up a projector on to the wall and connecting it to a laptop. Sound bar speakers are slender and can be wall mounted; they also look less cluttered and the wiring is simplified. If these are beyond your budget, you can get space-efficient vertical speaker towers that look good and blend in to a room.
Tip: It’s important to get your TV wall mounted correctly, post your TV wall mounting task to get it completed for you.
Source: EVEN
5. Greenery
If you don’t have room for a little side table to sit plants and flowers on, you can still brighten up a small living room by making use of hanging space and shelving. Hang or mount little glass terrariums on the walls, and you’ll get that nice aesthetic that greenery inside the home provides. Use floating shelves to give the effect of an indoor vertical garden, or place potted plants on window sills. Plants like ferns, air plants and succulents work well inside, as do small flowers and herb seedlings.
Source: StyleCaster
6. Wall and ceiling space
A room can look a little bare without much on the walls or in the centre, so make use of the space to create something functional or just add character. Think prints, clocks, a little vertical garden or a floating shelf on walls.
If you’re up for the challenge, try making your own bookshelf by cutting up an old pallet. Paint it with varnish or a neutral colour and use it to hold little plants or stack books.
Utilise hanging space from the ceiling for pendant lighting, a hanging chair or even a fire place – it will add a focal point and element of style to the room.
Source: My Domaine
7. Bring the living room design together
If you don’t already spend every weekend at Kmart, putting the final styling touches in your small living room is a great excuse to get down there. Soft pastel prints and copper are on trend at the moment – add this to your space in the form of a print or hanging article. Put a soft, neutral coloured throw over the side of the couch to draw the look together.
Source: Pinterest
Do you have any tips for styling a small living room? Let us know in the comments below!
Some great ideas above it has got me motivated
These are some awesome ideas for getting a small space to look nice. I’ve always heard that adding mirrors into a room makes the space seem larger – I’ve never tried it myself, but that might be a tip for those with smaller living rooms.
Wow a nice collection of ideas to decorate your small living room.