The question of how to furnish a living room when repairing or equipping an entire apartment should be asked one of the first. This is not a working or domestic area, such as an office or kitchen, but also not personal, which is noticeable in the case of a bedroom. The drawing room is the face of the apartment, its soul, if you will. If order reigns in it, and a specific style is felt in the design, then the interior will turn out to be welcoming, and the room itself will be hospitable. Otherwise, creating an atmosphere of coziness and comfort is unlikely to succeed. A beautifully furnished living room may require a considerable investment, but it is quite possible to implement a project based solely on its abilities and small budget.
Target Functionality
Before you furnish a living room, you need to decide what kind of target functionality it has. In particular, what the room is for. Most often we are talking about a hall in which each family member has a rest or is engaged in study / work / entertainment. Design should come from this focus. So, for example, it would be wise to choose restrained, calm tones in the design, to avoid too bright accents and little useful objects. Lovely trinkets are best left for your personal space, while in the living room you need to create the maximum coziness and comfort, since it is designed for everyone. In addition to style and taste, convenience should be given the leading role in the development of the project.
Color accents and general background.
The dominant background in how to equip the living room should be occupied by a palette of soft, pastel colors. More beige, soft blue, cream, muted peach. Too bright spots may not appeal to someone, as a result of which the room will not be too cozy. However, an emphasis on a particular detail is still possible. If an excessively bright spot distracts from the conversation, then softly emphasizing a certain area will be just the way. You can do this this way:
- Focus on furniture color. For example, if you want to highlight a soft corner, then a productive solution will be to choose furniture 1-2 tones brighter and more saturated than the prevailing wall decoration. If they are painted in a muted shade of lavender, then you should take a sofa the color of lilac and so on.
- Different walls. If the room is an oblong room, then you can paint two walls in a slightly darker color from the same palette, emphasizing the soft corner and the side with books or a TV. This will somewhat soften the overall impression of the room.
- Direct zoning. In this case, we are talking about creating a full-fledged partition or arch of drywall or other material. This is possible, but only in the version with a spacious room, otherwise the abundance of details will ruin the cozy impression.
There are many options among how to properly furnish a living room, but all of them should be sifted through the prism of their own data, taking into account the target orientation, budget, and related conditions.
Overflow of light
Light is another way to furnish a living room and emphasize certain areas. So, for example, it will be appropriate to use two sources of illumination - the primary and secondary. The main role can be played by the LED cornice lighting of the ceiling, while the secondary - sconces and night lights . The room should be bright. In addition, among the options for furnishing the living room, the photo is attached above, you need to consider a constantly large number of people. Therefore, the light should not be contrasting, bright or overly oppressive. It is better to choose warm, light yellow tones.
At the same time, you should not hang an overly bulky or artsy chandelier, if this does not correspond to the general style of the room. Today, shades in the style of flowers are extremely popular, 2-3 will be quite enough. The key idea in this case is not to litter the room and leave room for the company, while taking care of the good light.
Zoning through lighting
The easiest way to emphasize or hide a detail is to direct the light correctly. In modern design, you can often see on the wall under the TV panel with LED lights in a soft, warm tone. This method allows you to simultaneously provide light in the area of the moving picture, because of which the eyes are not so tired when viewing, and to focus the attention of guests on the TV itself. A sconce can be installed next to a small library, and it, together with an armchair, will become a small personal area in the living room, if necessary.
Wall decoration
An extremely important point, which is dictated not only by fashion, but also by functionality. In particular, we can distinguish such factors influencing the choice:
- The presence of children. Walls should be washed well without losing their "presentation".
- Dimensions of the room. Whitewashing or light paint will allow you to visually expand the space, while any wallpaper or other finishing options simply squeeze it.
- Simplicity. The paint is universal, but it is not always suitable, and even leveling the walls under it is rather difficult, wallpapers are more functional and easy to use, and they also hide flaws.
- Price issue. High-quality wallpapers, perhaps, will be more expensive than paint and putty. But here a decorative tree or stone can be called leaders in the price aspect.
- General style of design. The walls and ceiling set the tone for the room, and therefore all subsequent design should be based on these two zones.
Before making a plan, it will be useful to consult on how easily the walls can be finished, whether it is worth doing this at all, or if you leave the usual whitewash.
Furniture selection
Perhaps one of the most difficult questions in general. In particular, you need to consider the potential number of guests, the degree of convenience, location, appearance, a place in the interior and participation in zoning. It is worth noting that it is impossible to foresee absolutely everything, it is enough to limit oneself to moderate requests and the rules of minimalism. Even if the overall design is built in a different vein, it is always better to have a small space in reserve and not litter the living room. It is best to take inexpensive, reliable furniture. Of course, among the options for furnishing a living room in an apartment, there are more expensive ones, but this is not to the benefit of every interior.
In the dry residue
So, suppose the owner answered for himself the question of how to properly furnish the living room. Furniture was selected, general trends in the interior and light. Now you need to make sure that every member of the family has a place in the room, and the soft zone will be as comfortable as possible, but at the same time extensive. Only in this case, it can be said that in terms of how to furnish the living room, specifically this project was more or less successful.