LIVING ROOM MAKEOVER

What Does Your Living Room Say About You?

The living room communicates volumes about you. It is the first room visitors to your home see and is what many people base their impressions of you, their host, on. That said your living room should always be a warm, comfortable and dazzling sight. This should not translate to expensive. You can achieve a great looking living room even with a constrained budget. A little creativity is all it takes to change a dull room into a dream living room.

When considering a make-over for the living room, bear in mind the aspects that need changing. These are the walls, flooring, curtains and if you can afford it, the furniture. If you’ve had the same color scheme for a long time, it’s time you tried a different one. A change of color brings spontaneous change to a room. Paint is not the only option you have when it comes to changing the walls. Wall paper can also be used to transform the living room walls. A wall hanging or two will complete the look.

Most of the other items in the room should reflect this new color. Change your curtains to ones of a matching or contrasting color to give the room a coordinated look. A change of drapery fabric is good too. Now the only major items in the room that requires attention are the furniture and carpet. Buying new furniture is out of the question, unless you had the plan in mind. It’s easy to change the look of your sofas by simply draping them in beautiful slipcovers. You can buy loose slipcovers for a casual look or have them custom made specifically for your chairs. Either way, make sure that they look neat and are carefully tucked in or they will look shaggy.

Ditch the carpet for a colorful rug. It offers more flexibility compared to a carpet. Once you install a carpet, it stays in place because removing it is tedious, unlike area rugs which can be moved from place to place to give a new look. There is a lot of variety in rugs too and you can experiment with different colors, based on the theme color in the room as well as different textures like shag rugs or bamboo rugs.

Lighting in the living room has to be given consideration. Go for elegant lamp shades and chandeliers to enhance the lighting. If you are lucky to have unique lamps or rare lamps in exquisite designs, you can display them on a table in the living room.

Having done all that is needed for a make-over, you need to choose what style to go with. Country, traditional, contemporary, chic, casual and formal are the more popular styles you can base the design of your living room on. The rules differ in each but are generally flexible, except perhaps for a formal style where you have to center everything on a focal point, such as the TV set. If your living room doubles as the dining room, the arrangement may be slightly different, depending on whether you have a separate dining set or use the existing sofas during meals.

There are no rigid rules to how the living room should look like. That means more freedom to rearrange and set the most popular room in the house as you wish.