Decorating a living room has never been easier with inspiration from these gorgeous spaces. Discover living room color ideas that enhance your whole house color palette, smart living room design tips to boost your home’s value, and ideas to make your new or existing home more beautiful and livable.
Living Room Focal Points
Let fireplaces and panoramas take center stage – both are winners when it comes time to sell your home. Paint walls white or in a neutral color cued by views outside the windows. Carry the wall color to furniture arranged in a way that promotes conversation and allows guests to enjoy flickering flames in the hearth as well as window-framed vistas. Anchor the grouping with a prettily patterned area rug; carry the rug's hues upward via accent pillows boasting organic motifs.
Tailor to Fit
Flirty and feminine, this relaxed yet quirky living room makes the most of the space's diminutive dimensions. Pack plentiful purpose into tiny spaces by opting for apartment-size furniture, see-through tables, and airy ottomans that don't block the eye and take up less space. Turn up the panache with complementary fabrics sporting a diverse array of both playful and prim patterns.
Decorate in Layers
Beautifully designed living rooms place noteworthy objects at every level. Mentally divide your space into low, mid, and high areas, and position elements to encourage the eye to travel up, down, and around. Here, a faux animal skin covering a woven area rug provides underfoot allure while a prettily accessorized tray atop a trunk and perky pillows add color at the midground. Use vivid canvases, striking sconce shades, and sculptural standing lamps to keep interest running high.
All Grown Up
Jewel tones, like jade green, sapphire blue, ruby red, and orangey coral, fashionably fuse to form exceptional and slightly exotic environs. Draw your palette from a lively patterned fabric or oversize artwork featuring at least three jewel tones. Introduce the vibrant tones as solid-color lamps, vases, trims, and furnishings so they contribute a sense of vibrancy without overwhelming your design.
On Safari
A touch of animal print goes a long way in this vintage-inspired living room. Fun zebra-pattern pillows and an upholstered ottoman accent soft blue walls. Other furniture and accessories remain neutral, allowing the pattern to shine.
Create a Classic Living Room
Neutral tones are a good place to start when designing living rooms that stylishly endure (plus their the perfect color palette when it comes time to prepare your home for sale). Make mostly monochromatic spaces work by fusing velvet upholstered furnishings with lighter linen-covered pieces and setting them atop a duo-tone sculpted area rug that picks up on the room's main hues. Employ white as a steadfast support, but introduce fashion-forward colors via solid and patterned pillows.
Have Fun
This cheerful living room is anything but formal. Designed to accommodate the needs (and artistic efforts) of a busy family, it combines comfortable seating, easy-clean coffee tables that double as workstations, and an overscale patterned area rug that hides spills. To create a similarly lighthearted lair, limit your color palette to white, one neutral shade, and one bright color so you can keep the focus on ever-changing exhibits of your kids' kaleidoscopic artwork.
Finishing Touches
Captivating yet calming living rooms result when neutral schemes are embellished with thoughtfully edited accessories. Choose a main hue, such as blue, to showcase coordinating patterned pillows and drapery fabrics. Distribute the color around the space via artwork and collections. Keep the peace by highlighting one metallic finish, such as the silvery tones that resurface here as table lamps, photo frames, tray-table handles, and art glass.
Whiteout
All-white rooms need a dose of personality. Bright red and blue patterned throw pillows pack a punch of contrast while keeping the space calm and relaxing. Dark wood furniture prevents the space from looking washed out.
Make It Modern
Think minimal when decorating contemporary living rooms. Move in a streamlined sectional sofa covered in a too-cool neutral and pile on pillows rendered in the latest hues. Choose accent tables with iron frameworks and naturally finished wood, stone, or glass tops. Prevent modern spaces from feeling cold by introducing wicker furnishings with progressive profiles and basket-weave or colorful geometric-pattern area rugs. Hang only a few things on the wall -- clutter-free defines contemporary design.
Perfect Arrangement
A unique room shape can make arranging furniture tricky (especially when staging a home for sale). For a narrow space, try placing a couch along the back wall. Flank the right and left sides with love seats or chairs. Keep accessories simple, and create symmetry by placing end tables on both sides of the sofa.
Color It Cottage
Life's always a beach when you're kicking back in a living room that gives a nod to sea, sand, and sky. Take a close look at how just a few hues--white, aqua, navy, silver, and seashell pink-- fashion a cottage-charming view in this seashore-inspired cottage. It's the repetition of driftwood finishes, colors, shine, and collections that provides a peaceful rhythm, which makes way for statement-piece pendant lights and a chandelier.
Cultivate Warmth
Though large in size, this home’s luxurious living room offers a cozy welcome, thanks to a combination of natural materials, plush textures, and posh forms done up in toasty hues. Produce cocooning vibes in expansive rooms by considering proportion when choosing furniture -- big spaces call for oversize sofas, commodious chairs, and statuesque accessories. In this room, the ottoman/coffee table serves all seating and nicely balances the stone mantel's weighty contours.
Kid Haven
Even the littlest members of your family need a place to relax and unwind. Contrast neutral walls with bold patterned fabrics and brightly colored accessories. Make organizing easy by placing baskets for books and toys at kid level.
Sophisticated Beauty
Make a statement with dark walls and bright white molding. In this living room, the beautiful coffered ceiling echoes the lines of the fireplace mantel and creates a sophisticated vibe. Traditional furniture with classic lines blends perfectly into the stylish living space.
Tied Together
Tribal influences and color schemes continue to be hot decorating trends. Re-create this well-traveled look by incorporating ethnic fabric patterns, folk-art furnishings, handcrafted relics, and vacation keepsakes. Further a room's collected character by mixing in gleaming gilded patinas; rough-woven blinds, rugs, and baskets; and sleek glass, steel, and leather accents. Strategically scatter one vibrant hue from your main fabric (in this case red) to direct visitors' eyes to your coolest pieces.
Go Eclectic
Present contemporary colors and furniture silhouettes alongside more traditional pieces to fashion a memorable living room. Use a graphic rug and chromatic Parsons tables (with storage below) to center a grouping of equally interesting but more understated furnishings. We love how this room includes armless chairs upholstered in a free-form floral pattern that picks up on the greens seen elsewhere in the space and ties into the color and theme of the botanical print displayed on the wall.
Cottage Cozy
Create a country cottage feel with wood-panel walls and classic cottage hallmarks, such as gingham, plentiful blue, cheery neutrals, and a bouquet of textures.
Simple and Clean
Soft white walls and modern furniture are the backbone of this Zen-inspired living room. Low-lying furniture with simple lines creates a streamlined look. Deep orange and bright green accents keep the space looking crisp and clean.
Classic Sophistication
This living room looks chic as it blends modern comforts with traditional pieces. Cozy chairs with exposed legs and velvet upholstery recall furniture of the late 19th century. Aged dark wood tables add an air of formal elegance. All of the vintage accents shine through a casual vibe offered by the white walls and dark flooring. Placing classic furniture and accessories within a space that is naturally casual creates a unique look that will service both formal gatherings and day-to-day relaxing.
Vintage Beauty
Funnel a passion for everything old by creating a vintage-inspired living space using pieces purchased from consignment stores and antiques shops. Reupholster worn-out cushions with modern fabrics to keep the room looking up to date. Mix and match wood frames to give artwork an eclectic feel.
Make a Statement
Dress up a neutral room with accessories. Look for statement pieces, such as the sunburst wall sculpture, to create a sophisticated vibe. Keep furniture simple, but accent it with a boldly patterned rug. Soft pink accents add a needed punch of color but don't distract from the statement pieces.
Dynamic Duo
The duo of brown and blue is always popular for decorating. To give the classic combo a more personal look, use hues that suit your design style. Here, shades of bright blue and sepia brown lend a traditional yet casual persona to this family-friendly living room.
3-in-1
Don't be afraid to mix themes within a single space. This living room embraces a charming combination of cottage, boating, and travel, which reflects the homeowners' styles and interests. Floral-print pillows add a touch of cottage comfort. Boat- and fish-inspired wall decor brings in a splash of the sea. And suitcases used as a coffee table make the space look traveled and eclectic.
Promote Peacefulness
This porch imparts the ageless charm of a finely furnished drawing room. Though boasting pattern aplenty, the scene stays serene thanks to a two-tone scheme of gray and white. Set the stage for an equally timeless design by presenting the woodwork's hue as elegant, timeworn furniture finishes. Choose contoured furnishings done up in formal upholstery fabrics in colors a few tones deeper than those seen on the room's perimeter.
Patterned to Perfection
Use a statement-making piece of furniture as the starting point for your living room decor. With neutral walls and flooring, this room gets its character from the boldly striped chair. Other patterns throughout the room feature the same color palette and echo the vertical stripes. Furniture with modern lines ensures that all of the pieces look cohesive.
Homey Neutrals
Wake up a neutral color palette with touches of pattern and texture. Paisley-print pillows in a soft blue stand out against the neutral-color love seat. The dark wicker coffee table and window shades add depth and richness to the soft space.
Repurpose and Refresh
Decorating a living room doesn't have to cost a bundle. Put in some imagination and elbow grease to transform furniture and architectural elements into fab fittings. Use oversize shades and lighting kits to convert reclaimed columns, boards, or beams into sculptural standing lamps. Coordinate incompatible tables, sideboards, and bookcases with paint; use varying shades of one color to keep painted pieces from appearing too matchy-matchy.
Nature's Beauty
Bring the outside inside by painting your walls a soft, dreamy shade of sky blue. In this living room, bright shades of buttery yellow and fiery orange echo colors found in flowers and sunlight. Reflective surfaces such as the coffee table and picture frames enhance the plentiful sunlight streaming in from outdoors.
Collective Effort
Give your room a collected, eclectic look with varied patterns and wood finishes. Bright red and blue patterned pillows stand out against a neutral sofa. Bold blue-and-white ikat curtains complement the large Oriental rug. The dark wood coffee table provides a subtle contrast against the lighter wood floors and bookcase.
Bold and Beautiful
Pack a punch with pattern and color against all-white walls. Bold coral and just a hint of blue are the colors of choice for this living room. Complementary patterns on the chair and ottoman blend perfectly with the solid-color sofa. The blank white walls emphasize the grain and hue of the dark wooden accents.
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens. Used with permission. ©Meredith Corporation. http://www.meredith.com. All rights reserved.