interior decoration

How to Design a Beautiful Living Space

The living room is the room in your house that you want your guest leaving with a positive feeling of you as a person as well as the rest of your house. It is the hardest room to decorate because it has to be versatile, comfortable, and entertaining. Guests, relatives, friends as they enter may determine many things about you, so you want it to be the showcase of your home for all of them. This makes the interior design of the living room especially important. The colors and accessories you choose will set the mood of the home and its decor. In a social center such as this, you do not want that influence to be a negative one.

What surrounds us everywhere is color. It makes up our environment. Everywhere we look there is color, and this affects our moods and emotions. Certain colors have positive effects. Yellow, for instance, is a happy color bringing light and cheerful where ever it is, while grey is considered gloomy and of no effect. These effects change as the shading changes, and of course other factors can altar them as well that affect most people in a similar manner. However, it is important to understand that these ideas are not necessarily accepted universally. Importantly, one should always follow their own taste when designing a room.

Now before you begin, you should decide what kind of mood that you desire to set. Are you looking to make this a quiet peaceful room or a place for entertaining or partying? We all want our living room to present the best image possible and want it to have an updated appearance. Once you know what you want, you can start by painting the room a color that will establish a particular mood that you desire to impart to others.

Sometimes it is said that blue is a favorite color. Blue will produces a sense of calm, and is often associated with the ocean. The color blue can make a room look larger, and it stimulates elated emotional responses. A very popular color of blue currently is a sort of grayed blue. They are using it in every room in the house because of the current trend. If you are not particularly a blue person, I suppose you will have to get used to it, because during its seven year cycle, you will see that color everywhere. After most people have decided to like it, made the change, and then they start all over with another color they consider to be “current”.
Green is also a popular color. This is the color of nature, and is almost always associated with forest, budding plants, etc. Using green is slightly more invigorating then blue, but still produces a sense of mental calm. Green is visually pleasant to the eye, and is actually good to create a calming mood. Avoid greens that remind you of unpleasant things, but do use nature as your guide to determine colors into a green themed room.

A room painted in earth tones gives one a close, grounded feeling, and can promote a sense of togetherness. Where there are rustic natural colors that seem simple and warm, they can be added to others that invigorate a bit of the togetherness. If you desire a feeling of family and home, use soft tans and browns. Noticeably, they don’t show dirt as quickly as others. Greens can be matched in with other warm colors to create a feeling of nature and bringing the outdoors in.

Sometimes reds and yellows are colors that one might want to avoid in large doses. I personally love red on the walls of a room and/or a color to use to accessorize a room. It really speaks volumes about the personality of the one who used it. Usually they have a zest for life, are strong in their personally, as well as a strong leader. Red, while highly invigorating, is also a very aggressive color. However, using too much yellow can cause eye irritation and uncomfortable feelings. To play it safe if you desire a yellow room one should go a soft muted yellow. You might want to use reds and yellows only as accessories, and only when they match the room’s main color scheme.

Mostly pink lends itself to a more feminine side of the person when using the color. In light tones and small doses this color gentles people’s personalities. However, be careful because using the color of bright pink on the walls of a room may cause some to feel irritated by the brightness. Instead use pink in an understated manner like accessories in your decorations. If you want to theme a room pink, then choose a light color that will match earth tones.

LET’S DISCUSS ACCESSORIES

When the basic painting is done, now is the time to truly make some wise decisions about bringing your room into the current look. You will find that this year, things are much simpler and less fussy than before. The furniture has more of a clean line, there is not the “heaviness” that was last year’s trend. Gone are the fringes and tassels for the most part - that is if you are happy with a simpler trend. Not that the last seasons trends are completely old and worn out by any means. Many people will prefer that look for sometime and it may never be completely “out-of-date”. As is always the traditional look, it will always be considered to be a choice of many fine designers. But should not our accessories define the home as our own?

PILLOWS - Throw pillows are an age-old accessory for any room to bring in color and to lend themselves to comfort on a sofa or bed. You can always dress up a bed, a sofa, a window bench, even chairs with comfortable pillows in bright and sassy colors. They come in every shape and size and the trend is to still use plenty.

FURNITURE - The most important thing about a room is to be careful not to get it too crowed with too much furniture. Perhaps you have moved to a smaller house or updating a new bedroom. If you do not have furniture in proportion to the room, you need to downsize. If it is a small room, do not get an oversized couch or bed. Remember unless the room is large, posture beds cause a room to look closed in. So it is best to use a tall headboard that makes a statement with no large end board. Some people find change hard. They would rather have their “stuff” that grandma has given them than have an attractive room. Maybe a storeroom is the solution, if you can’t get rid of the excess furniture. A well-balanced room is so much more attractive that a room that looks like someone with no taste is just stuffing the room.

TV - In the past a living room with a fireplace that has no built- in to its side to house a TV has poised a large problem. That problem has been “where should the focus be placed”? Should you cluster the furniture around the TV or around the fireplace? Usually the TV has won out, but it always left a room without a strong focus. Often people, excited about their large screen TV, didn’t even consider that a problem before they bought. However, thanks to the new technology, now thin lined TV’s can be placed into the wall over the fireplace. So once again the problem with focus has been solved and both the fireplace and TV are in same place. Not only that, the problem with “what do I put over the fireplace” has been solved.

ART WORK.- Frankly this is the most important accessory one can add to their house in every room. Good paintings and quality giclee prints can make an ordinary room look like a million dollars. If one chooses cheap prints with cheap frames, the art work does not catch the eye of the beholder nor does it speak good taste. Rather, it implies that it is an after thought and of no importance, but it is very important. It should set the mood for any room and establish the color scheme. Good artists know how to use color that compliments the other and so gives you a great start in order to help you decide what should be the primary and secondary colors in your room. I have written articles on my website that discuss the choice of paintings for a room.
Decide what kind of setting you want to invoke, and then use artwork and accessories that will help get you there. Make sure the colors you use will match one another. Use balance and design