Living Room Perfection: Start From Scratch!

When thinking about what to do with your living room space, you must first decide on your style. What is your style? You have to take the time to find the look that you want to create which will tell what exactly your style is, and whatever look you go for, do your research.

Take cuttings from magazines, create a Pinterest board, or even pull your favorite items together in a moodboard on something like Houzz. This will help prevent any costly design errors or choices, and keep you on track whilst you’re shopping. It will also help you decide on exactly what you want your living room to look like!

Think Of The Family

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Once you have your style picked out and have a vision for your space, you can begin making arrangements. First, you have to remember to make it friendly. This part isn’t always easy, but think about how to accommodate all of the family, particularly the young people, when designing your room. Give them their own seating. Beanbags or little chairs are great, and ensure they feel part of the family. Making sure fabrics and materials are washable or can be wiped clean will help keep the room looking good too.

Have tables at the right height for play, and avoid sharp edges. Keep breakables out of reach for young children too. However, if young people are not a part of your equation and you want to keep your living room as a formal space, feel free to use all of the sharp edges that you please!

Consider The Lighting

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Next, you’ll need to make the most of the light that you have. You can do this in several ways. If you have large windows allow as much light to flood into the room as possible, but if you aren’t blessed with such features, you need to trick the space into feeling lighter. Use light reflecting paints, gloss surfaces, or glass and perpex furniture. Remember to add a mirror opposite of the window if you can to help bounce light around the room, and if you can remove a door or create a walkway through to the next room, this will also help.

Don’t forget to add lighting to your design too. Accent lighting, task lighting and table lamps all help to create a certain atmosphere in the room, and keep it cozy and welcoming. Harsh lighting will make the space feel uninviting and cold, so try to avoid too many overhead lights.

Fixate A Focal Point

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A living room space will benefit from a focal point. In this room, the focal point is usually a fireplace, but if you don’t have one, it might be the window or the sofa or even a light fixture from the ceiling. You might not want a huge stag head above, but create the wow factor with one piece that draws the eye into the room, and this will help to set the tone for the rest of the decor. It will really give your living room some focus, and it can be great help in designing the remainder of the space.

Make It Comfy

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It goes without saying that a great living room design needs comfortable seating. When you have a young family you don’t always want to spend huge amounts of money on this, knowing it might get wrecked in a few years, but you still want the best seating that you can find. Make sure that it is comfortable for everyone, and made with quality material, so that you can get your money’s worth!

Plan For Storage

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Lastly, a well-designed family home needs plenty of great storage, and the living room is no exception! There are lots of ways to incorporate storage into the room. Think about shelving for books and accessories, coffee tables with drawers, or even poufs with hidden storage. Be creative with your storage, upcycling old pieces of furniture and giving them new leases of life.

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How To Decorate With Your Child’s Age

One of the hardest things to keep up with as a parent is the changing of your child’s room as they grow older. Typically, there’s at least three ages a child reaches in life when their room should change: around 2 or 3, 10 to 12, and 17. So that you don’t have to pay to completely re-do your child’s room (furniture and all), I’m here to inform you of easy, inexpensive ways to give them the change they would like without breaking the bank.

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First, because it is the child that wants the change, you should have them make a list of all the things they want new in their room. Look at the list and pick the three most important items. They should understand the compromise and will be thankful that you included them and cared about what they wanted.

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The most essential item in the bedroom is the bed. The best way to go about not buying two or three beds from the time they’re born to the time they are 18 is by buying a convertible bed. Convertible beds go from cribs to toddler size beds all the way to full size beds. If you don’t care for the convertible beds, start with a bunk bed when they become a toddler, because in that case, you can change the bottom into a desk and chair area as they get older. It lets them enjoy the fun bunk bed stage, but also gives them a very useful study area. Try your best not to get a twin bed. You should get at least a full size bed if the room can handle that size, because that growing boy or girl will grow out that twin bed very quickly. Also, take into account when they are much older, they’re going to want some nicer, higher quality furniture. You might as well get it while they’re younger, at least a few items that they will enjoy.

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Changing the accessories will do wonders. Take full advantage of the fact that you can throw a lava lamp on the dresser, and their room will suddenly be cool again. Little things like that can change the child’s happiness with the room. It’s a cheap and easy way to make them happy without changing around the entire room. The accessories have to be practical for their current age as well. Sometimes, what the trend is isn’t practical for everyone.

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The activity area of the child’s room should gradually change with their age as well. Start swapping out toy trucks for ipads and docking stations. A cool thing to hang up that can stay up from when they’re born to when they leave for college is a bulletin board. You can continually change what is up there from their kindergarten artwork to their heavy rock band posters. You’ll love it the first half, and they will love it the second half.

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Lastly, we come to the paint. This is a simple way to change it up that can be a fun thing to do with the kids. They’ll enjoy picking out the colors and painting next to you. Changing the wall colors immediately changes the mood of the room, which is normally all the child is wanting. If you do want to go all the way, look for new bedding, window treatments, and area rugs to bring it all together.

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You always want to enjoy everything you do with your kids, so make sure they’re having fun and feeling included in this change they want to occur. It might be your final overall decision, but the kids definitely want to have a say in their room. Keep it updated. Keep it fresh. Have fun during the time you get to spend together doing little projects around the house like this.

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