Restyle your living room

In relationships, they say that people suffer from the 7 Year Itch. This is when long-term relationships supposedly struggle to survive, because – if you believe the hype – this is when the body’s levels of the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, begin to dip. But when it comes to your living space, 7 years is a milestone you’re unlikely to reach. Why? Because interior decor is essentially fashion, and fashion is so ugly that we have to change it every 6 months and moan about how awful the last lot of ideas were. That’s the way it goes. And because living rooms are the most prominent room in the house, they’re in for a repeated restyling rough ride.

Of course, other concerns within the home are much faster to sort out. Need lower price home insurance? Visit the comparison websites. Need better lighting? Invest in more fixtures. Want a better return on home heating? Switch to something like emo oil, for example. But living rooms need a little more thought. Let’s get to it.

Restyle Your Living Room

Bookcases

Your bookcase looks awful for two reasons. One, what’s on it. And two, what’s behind it. What’s on it is likely to be mostly books. That’s fine. What’s not fine are the dust jackets. These colourful and often dogeared and shiny fronted dust jackets look a touch gaudy. Instead, remove them, and take pride in ordering your books by their authors. This instantly lifts the bookshelf from an untidy looking dumping ground of reds and greens and blues and greens, etc., into a functional mini-library that people will want to approach and inspect with a tilted head.

Now, the wallpaper. Or the wall paint. This, again, is probably all wrong. Neutral block colour pastels may not be to your taste, but they are very much to everybody else’s. If your living room walls are bedecked in something like black and bright red rose style wallpaper, you have created a room that says “take me as I am” and not “hello, how are you?” … we all know what kind of person we’d rather meet at a party. Choose pastels. They will work for you. 

Don’t design a waiting room by accident 

In the previous tip, we discussed pastels. But that comes with a warning. You need some darker tones in there to prevent your living room from looking like a brightly coloured sterile waiting room at the dentist’s office. Try adding stained wood or a patterned rug to contrast with the pastel walls. Or perhaps add some deep coloured vases or gold coloured light fixtures – anything to add pops of deeper or darker tones that show you live in this space and it isn’t just for when guests come around.  

FOR MORE POSTS LIKE THIS SEE OUR LIFESTYLE ARCHIVE.

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