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Ten tips for an inviting living room
No room in the house works harder than the living room: most evenings end there, and it is where you receive your guests. This article sets out ten ways to give that room warmth and atmosphere, from the layout to the finishing details.
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Start with the layout
Everything begins with the layout. Look first at the walking routes: where are the doors, and how do you move through the room? Once that is clear, you can arrange the space with as few obstacles as possible.
A room divides into circulation space and living space, and the balance between the two decides how calm it feels. Get that balance right and the room reads as quieter and more generous, and that calm is where the sense of luxury begins.
A warm room changes how you feel
The living room is where you come to rest after a long day and where the household gathers. Pay attention to how it is furnished and it becomes a place where you choose to spend your evenings.
A comfortable room also does something to your mood. It gives a sense of shelter, and people talk more easily where they feel at ease. Seen that way, the effort you put into the living room is an investment in how the whole household lives.
What we mean by atmosphere
In the studio we treat atmosphere as a working term: the emotional response a room calls up in the people who use it. That reaches further than what you see. Sound, scent and touch all play their part.
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Creating it starts with deciding what the room should feel like. Warm and enclosed, or light and modern? Settle that first; the colours, materials and decoration all follow from it.
Choosing a colour scheme
The colour scheme does a great deal of the work. Colours have a strong pull on emotion: they can make the same space feel warm or cool, restful or alert.
A common choice for a warm living room is a palette of reds, oranges and browns, colours that carry a sense of shelter. They can cover a wall, or stay in the furniture and in accents such as cushions and throws.
Neutral tones work just as well. Beige, grey and off-white give the room a calm, timeless base, and they let stronger colours and materials come forward exactly where you want them.
Lighting in layers
In our designs, lighting carries much of the atmosphere: the same room reads completely differently under different light.
In a blog on the role of lighting in your interior we go into this further.
The most useful technique is to build the light in layers. General lighting makes the room usable, task lighting serves the places where you read or work, and mood lighting provides the intimacy in between.
Fit dimmers where you can. They let you match the light to the moment: low for an evening on the sofa, brighter when you pick up a book.
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Furniture that fits the feeling
Furniture has to do two things at once: be comfortable in daily use and fit the feeling you settled on earlier. One without the other shows quickly.
For a warm room, choose seating you sink into, and add cushions and throws. Side tables, a coffee table and bookshelves keep everything within reach and the room in order.
Decoration follows the same rule. Paintings, photographs, plants, candles or a good vase: what matters is that each piece fits the room and says something about the people who live there.
Texture and pattern
Texture and pattern give a room depth and something for the eye to rest on, and they carry much of its warmth and comfort.
Fabric is the natural place to start: velvet, wool, cotton and linen each have their own hand, though it pays to check how a fabric wears in the spot you intend it for. Wallpaper with a strong pattern, striped, floral or geometric, can give a single wall a character of its own.
Textured rugs, cushions and throws carry the same effect at floor and seat height, and the comfort they add is the kind you feel rather than see.
Bring in natural materials
Natural materials settle a room. They bring something of the outdoors in, and a room that holds them feels calmer for it.
They can go almost anywhere: timber wall panelling, a wooden floor, natural stone. Each brings warmth and texture, and together they connect the room to the world outside.
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Plants finish the job. They freshen the room and add colour and life that no object can. Choose them to fit the feeling you are after: large green plants lean lush and tropical, flowering ones softer and more romantic.
Scent works on a room too
Scent works directly on mood. You register the smell of a room within seconds of walking in, well before the eye has settled.
Scented candles, reed diffusers and essential oils are the simple route. Match the scent to the purpose of the room: lavender calms, citrus wakes a space up, vanilla reads as warm.
Fresh flowers, herbs or a bowl of fruit do the same thing more naturally, and they give the eye something as well.
Give the room a focal point
How the furniture sits in the room decides whether the layout delivers its comfort. Think about the flow of the space, and place each piece where it serves daily use rather than where it happens to fit.
Start from the focal point: the fireplace, the television or a view worth facing. Set the main seating and the coffee table around that point and the room largely composes itself.
Then respect the walking routes we began with. Leave enough space to pass comfortably, and keep furniture out of the paths people use most.
The finishing touches
Accessories come last, and in our work they are chosen with the same care as everything before them. The right pieces reflect the people who live in the house, and that is what turns a well designed room into somebody's home.
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Handmade pieces earn their place here, and if there are family pieces, use them: little else brings personality into an interior so directly. The aim is a balance of function and refinement, with a few deliberately placed objects doing the quiet talking.
What we can do for you
If you would rather not work all of this out alone, we take the whole of it out of your hands, from the first sketch to the handover, so you come home to a house where you feel completely at ease.
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