Smart Space Saving Living Room Decoration Tips for the Summer

Summer has arrived at last. Now that you have a bit more energy and your morale is higher due to much-needed vitamin D, you’re ready to tackle some new projects.

During the winter, you may find that your living spaces began to get a bit cluttered; it’s almost as if you felt the need to store extra items for the winter, because your subconscious was sending you into some sort of squirrel mentality.

Hopefully you’ll get to spend plenty of time outside this summer, but it’s also an important time to take stock of your home’s interior as well. If you want to feel lighter, more refreshed and less anxious, keeping a clean, organized and pseudo-minimalist home is a great way to get started.

In this article, you will read about some great space-saving living room decoration tips that will help you lighten up your living room so you can lighten up your outlook on life.

Seating

Save space by throwing out (or donating) your old armchairs, and instead tuck a couple dining style chairs with armrests into two corners of the room. You can make these chairs more comfortable with colorful cushions and a sheepskin throw.

Choose a sofa with clean lines and a low height, this will make the surrounding space seem cleaner and larger, as well as keeping it feeling open. Or instead of the traditional sofa, consider something even more petite, such as a settee or a loveseat.

Entertainment center

Have you come to accept a mass of tangled cables and unorganized games and DVDs as part of your living room décor? This is the case in many family homes, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. Here are some tips for tidying up the entertainment center:

Hide cable boxes, DVD players and gaming systems by getting rid of your TV stand. If you’re out shopping for 55” smart TVs, consider finding one that can be mounted to the wall. After mounting your TV to the wall, install a low cupboard along the length of the wall that the TV is mounted too. Closing doors will conceal all of the bits and bobs you now have lying around, and the top of the cover is free for displaying more aesthetic items such as plants and family photos.

Tables

Even the smallest of living rooms need surface space for decorative items, or holding snacks and drinks while you’re watching a movie. The answer? Nesting tables! Nesting tables work just like the names says: they are sets of tables, each one a different size that fits perfectly underneath the one larger than it. When you need more surface space, you can use all of the tables, and when you are straightening up, you can simply tuck the excess tables away under the main table.

Lighting

Although light is not something that physically takes up space, low lighting can definitely make rooms seem smaller, cramped and more cluttered. Don’t have large bay windows? No fear — you can still make your living room seem larger simply by using white or very light beige shades. Semi-sheer shades are also the way to go to help maximize the amount of natural light flowing into your room.

Color

It may be super tempting to choose a fun, playful color for your walls as an outward expression of your inner artist, but try to resist these urges. If you want to make your space look uncluttered, keep your walls clean and white.

Additionally, try choosing just one accent color for your cushions, throws or furniture. If you can’t resist a colorful living room, then make sure the colors that you choose are in the same color family. If you absolutely need crazy color, just make sure you do some research before-hand.

Corner space

There is an epidemic in homes all across the world. Every year, millions of corners go unused, literally taking away space and making living rooms smaller. So what can you do to help in the fight against unused corner space? If you’ve got woodworking skills, you can craft your own corner display cabinet that will fit perfectly into that unused nook. Not so handy? No problem! There are plenty of corner storage cabinets on the market, and they come in any style you could imagine.  

 Consider mobility

If you live in a smaller home, you may be dealing with a combined living room/dining room situation. If this is the case, it’s likely that your dining room table, however diminutive in size, is taking up a good chunk of space. You can find very attractive, handcrafted dining tables that have castors as feet, making them easy to push to the side or even roll to another space when not in use.

Storage

Besides choosing a minimalist lifestyle and throwing everything out, plenty of storage space is your best friend when saving space in the living room, or any room for that matter. You may be looking around at your small space and asking yourself ‘Ok, but where do I find space to put the storage?’. That’s where stairs come in.

Do you have a staircase that begins near or in your living room? If the answer is yes, then you’re in luck. If your staircase runs along a wall, then you most likely have a bunch of unused space underneath it. Use that space to install drawers that can be used to store everything from linens to school supplies. If the space under your staircase is filled in, make it your big summer project to knock down those walls and make use of that space.

Get your shoe storage on! If there’s no way to access the space under the stairs, why not turn each step into a drawer? You may not want to store your precious linens in there, but these discrete drawers can be a great space for board games and shoes.

Also, wall shelves. If you want to save space, your decoration should be on the walls. That means, if you can, your shelves should be on the walls. Why have a console table taking up space when you could provide the same amount of storage and display space on the wall?

Put your furniture to work

If you’re in your living room, have a look at your sofa. Is your sofa serving any other purpose than looking pretty and providing seating? If not, the base could and should also be a place to store extra blankets and cushions. Unless you’re taking the above advice and buying a petite settee, make sure you choose a sofa that has storage space beneath the cushions.

The same can be said for your coffee table. If you’re trying to save space, a delicate coffee table resting on spindly cabriole legs is probably not the best option. Choose a coffee table that at least has a bottom platform. If you want to go all out, convert a vintage chest into a coffee table — that way, you’ll have tons of space for storage right under the lid.

So, get outside and soak up the sun as much as you can this summer. But on those days when it’s just too hot to be outside, or you’re just way too sunburned from yesterday at the beach, consider cleaning out your living room and giving yourself a space to relax that is uncluttered and lets you breath. It may seem like a big project, but even just taking one of the tips from this article will make a big difference in your little space.