10 tips: set up a small living room

The the living room is the heart of your home. Here you spend most of the time (awake), here you relax and here the whole family comes together. But what to do if you don't have as much space as you would like? We give you ideas on how to set up a small living room so that it doesn't look cramped.

1. Keep the room bright

Small rooms appear larger in bright colours. So rely on soft, reserved tones such as white, beige and cream, with which you can design your living room tone on tone. This makes the room appear lighter, brighter and less depressing. You add that e.g. with wood for a natural and harmonious effect. Of course, you can still round it off with individual accents in bold colours or shiny metals to get a little whistle.

2. Small furniture fits in small living rooms

When choosing your living room furniture, make sure that you do not select furniture that is too bulky. A chunky living area may look exuberant and visually overload the room. Shelves, coffee tables, armchairs and others shouldn't be too bulky either. So keep an eye on the proportions.

The the only way to get a really large sofa is to consciously make it the centre and orient it with space. Set up the corner sofa or living area so that you can look into the open side from the door - so you achieve an inviting effect.

3. Choose furniture with a slim silhouette

In keeping with the previous tip: Delicate, delicate shapes make themselves better in a small living room because they create an impression of lightness. Choose sofas and armchairs with a slim silhouette. Our tip: In the Skandi style, you will find many of these pieces, such as a sideboard on slender feet and a slim coffee or side table.

Wire chairs, such as Le Gaillard from the Eva Padberg Collection, or hip rattan chairs look even airier. The trick: Since they consist of struts, the view falls through them. So they don't block the view and look even more subtle.

4. Leave free areas

Minimalism is one of the top virtues if you want to set up a small living room. So make sure that you do not overload the available space. Leave free floor space and if in doubt leave a piece of furniture outside.

The same applies to the wall: restrict yourself to a few pictures and/or elements and leave plenty of space around it. For this reason, a low sideboard is also a good choice on one side of the wall, because the entire free space above makes the small room appear spacious.

If your living room is also low: a portrait format optically stretches the room.

5. Use the height

"Yes, but where should I put all my things?" may you ask yourself now Don't worry, because of course a bookshelf still belongs in the living room. And you can really take advantage of that. If you have a lot of things to store, opt for a high shelf up to the ceiling, which you can decoratively and variedly. Small items disappear in storage boxes, this keeps the order.

It's best to place it on a sidewall that isn't visible at first glance. So you have combined both: the free space from tip 5 and the possibility of creating storage space.

Also useful for more storage space: wallboards that you can attach at height, such as above the door.

6. Multifunctional furniture

You don't have a lot of space, so your chosen furniture should be useful. Console tables are recommended: They are not particularly deep, they offer storage space, sometimes also drawers, and can be desks or dressing tables.

Upholstered stools can take over the function of a coffee table - or offer an additional seat if required. Or you can add a seated chest to your equipment, in which you can store a lot and place a guest on it.

With a sofa bed or a functional sofa, you have more aces up your sleeve - for example, sleeping space for overnight guests or a bed box in which you can put blankets or similar. can accommodate.

Also very practical: movable furniture. For example, you can roll the movable Lumby side table to the sofa and use it as a shelf, and when you don't need it, you can easily move it out of sight.

7. Optical illusions

Horizontal stripes make wide - what is rather undesirable in fashion, you can take advantage of when designing small rooms. Stripes or borders on the wall make your small living room appear wider. Even low ceilings can be visually increased by painting a wall and leaving a strip of white on the top. Another tip for this would be a striped wallpaper.

Cross-striped carpets are also a good means of visually stretching rooms. The perspective effect makes the eye believe that the room is longer.

8. Use light specifically

Even with the right lighting, you can make a small living room appear larger. First of all: Choose not too flashy lamp models here, but discreet, slim lights, analogous to the furniture (see 2.)

Indirect lighting is the method of choice for optically expanding a room with light. You can do this with backlights, concealed LED strips, wall lights or shelf lighting. The trick: a room looks farther when its walls are gently illuminated.

In addition, you should rely on a variety of light sources that you can use flexibly. For example, while reading you can have a floor lamp next to the sofa and have the rest of the room rather dark - by not seeing everything at a glance, the room seems so larger.

9. Attach the mirror

We know this trick, for example, from the cooling shelf in the supermarket: mirrors pretend additional space where there is none. Another effect: by reflecting light, they bring more light into the room without additional lighting. It is best to hang the mirror opposite the window or on the wall to the side of it, so it can absorb light and throw it back into the room.

10. Less is more

In summary, this advice is probably the quintessence when furnishing small living rooms: Be careful not to overload the room. This applies to pieces of furniture, but also to decoration: it's better to choose a few (colour-coordinated) favourite pieces and then stage them properly. And in case of doubt: out with it. So you can always re-stage your room.

Author Bio: Kalla karikalan is a professional art product designer. I have created a wide and winsome range of murals, sculptures, pooja room door, main doors, brass staircase railing that can be used by architects and interior designers.

Kalla karikalan is a professional brass railing designer as well as an interior designer.