Creating a Better Living Room Space at Home

One of the most important rooms in your house is your living room. And unfortunately, it’s often the one that gets the least attention regarding focal space, cleaning, and decorating. Kitchens, bathrooms, dining rooms – they tend to get their own mental space. But living rooms just and up the default of where everyone goes when they aren’t somewhere else. And it often becomes a mess and a hazard to your family’s mental clarity.

So when you’re trying to create this better living room area, what do you do? First, you find a theme. After that, you get rid of your television! You need to clean it regularly, so it doesn’t end up as your dumping ground. And from an aesthetic perspective, you should always use light to your advantage.

Find a Theme

Finding a theme for your living room is all about deciding who you are as a person and what you are like as a family unit, and then expanding around that idea. If you consider yourself a modern family, then us a modern theme. If your family is more into a vintage look, then head that direction. The point is to have an overarching theme to your living room’s presentation so that everything you add can complement the schematic that you have.

Improve the Lighting

Nobody wants to sit in a room that looks like Blackpool Illuminations when they’re trying to relax. Similarly, nobody wants to sit in a room that feels like a cave when they’re trying to read or see someone’s face. A living room that is too bright or too dark is close to useless as nobody will want to be in there, so remember the rule of three: ambient, task and accent. Ambient lighting should be the main light on the ceiling and provide enough light for general use of the room, so consider a chandelier drum light or something similar to make it really stand out. Task lighting should be near tables and chairs where people are likely to read or write. Finally, accent lighting should highlight decorative features such as wall paintings and shelves. It should also improve the ambiance and create a warm glow.

Get Rid of Your Television

A television far too often overtakes living rooms. If you want to have the best living room space at home, get rid of the TV. You can have televisions in game rooms, basements, dens, or other living spaces, but your living room itself should be an area where people can come and collect and talk to each other as opposed to just staring at the screen. If there’s one thing that you can do to make your living room space better, it’s getting rid of the focus on electronics and putting the emphasis back on family. Of course, you may not have another room to put your TV in, so just get a smaller one so that it doesn’t demand so much attention.

Keep a Cleaning Schedule

Do you follow a cleaning schedule for your house? Chances are, the living room is going to be one of the things that gets left off from the daily routine. Because of so much traffic and it’s so chaotic, families will often get overwhelmed and just leave the living room as a continuous mess. Break out of this habit and clean the living room first by sticking on a schedule.

Use Light To Your Advantage

Most living rooms have plenty of windows. And that means you can use light to your advantage. Sunshine from the outside mixed with artwork, mirrors, reflective services, living plants – these are the things that you can use to really open up your living room space. Anything that’s dark, dirty, or dense doesn’t need to be showcased in this area of your home, so move the wrong things out and the right things in.