3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Living Room

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Your living room and kitchen rival your bedroom as the spaces you spend the most time in. Your living room is probably the more important of the two when it comes to comfort and first impressions with guests since the kitchen tends to be limited by its function.

In some cases, the kitchen becomes the de facto living room because the living room lacks the space and flow for what it should do. Here are three ways to improve your living room.

Have the Right Furniture

You need the right furniture for the living room’s purpose. You need at least one large couch, though an overly plush couch or large couch that covers two walls may actually impede the use of the room. To make your furniture stand out it might be a cool idea to create a feature wall using paint or wallpaper for walls.

In that case, get a smaller couch that is still comfortable enough for several people to sit on or one person to lie on. You need at least one comfortable chair for someone to sit on separate from the couch, though ideally two or more. This is determined by how many people regularly use the living room and how much space you have.

You need end tables or coffee tables that put things at a convenient height for guests, though you can use multi-purpose furniture like coffee tables that double as storage. Common mistakes in living room design include too few places for people to sit and decorative furniture that ends up cluttering the space.

Simplify

Instead of buying even more decorative items to try to bring together the clashing styles, simplify by purging most of the decorative items and keeping only items that you truly love or use on a regular basis. This allows accent pieces that remain to pop out because there isn’t competition for attention.

For those who don’t know how to simplify, the process starts by committing to a style and then selling or donating the items that don’t fit that style anymore. To do all of this on a budget, look for items you can pull from storage or other rooms to create a cohesive whole with fewer pieces than going out and buying more. You may find that bookcase in the corner of a bedroom or antique desk in the office you never use would work well in your new living room.

Add a Fireplace If You Don’t Have One

Fire provides a visceral pleasure that is hard to describe. The light and heat are both attractive in their own way and it is instinctive to gather around to enjoy both. The challenges for those who want a fireplace in the modern world include pollution ordinances that may limit its use and the hassle of cleaning it.

The potential problem of soot aggravating asthma or requiring you to clean more often scares others from installing a fireplace. However, there are modern solutions. For example, the best electric fireplaces provide the look of a traditional fireplace complete with roaring fire without the need to buy wood or clean up soot. In contrast, gas fireplaces still require some maintenance while bringing the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.