Inspiration
Four tips for furnishing a luxury living room
The living room carries a lot of the life of a house. You spend much of your time there, and it is where you receive family and friends. That makes it worth furnishing with care: you want a room where you feel at home. These four tips help you get the furnishing of your living room right.
Inspiration
Making the room look larger
Many people want to make the living room look larger than it is. Colour does most of that work: light colours open a room up, dark colours close it in. Choose ton sur ton, with a light tint on the walls, sand, beige or cream, say. Those colours sit naturally in a high-end interior too. Layering several tints of one colour gives the room depth, and light colours have a calming effect as well.
Inspiration
The layout follows how you use the room
Before you start furnishing, think about what the room is for. Some people mainly watch films and series there. Others would rather look out over the garden. And if you love to cook, the room has to work around long dinners with friends. How you use the room decides the layout. For film watchers the sofa wants a clear view of the television or the cinewall; if the garden is the draw, turn the seating towards it; and if you do the cooking, keep a sightline from the kitchen to your guests.
Inspiration
Choosing the sofa
A few pieces carry the room, and the sofa is usually the showpiece. Comfort comes first, but the sofa also has to stand in the right place, and it helps if it is a fine piece in itself. So the choice covers more than size, colour and fabric: the proportion to the room matters, and so do the walking routes around it.
A corner sofa suits a large room. In a small room it quickly looks too big, and a smaller two-seater is the better choice. If you still want a touch of comfort and somewhere for your legs, add a generous pouffe: in the evening you put your feet up on it, and when guests come it carries a tray of coffee.
Inspiration
Choosing the curtains
Curtains do as much for a living room as the floor and the walls. Window treatments control the light, and they change how the room reads: its depth and its colour, and how private it feels after dark. Watch the length. In a smaller room with window sills that protrude, short curtains are the better choice: full-length ones would have to hang some eight centimetres in front of the sill, and that costs you real space. In a large room, curtains down to the floor earn their place. They insulate the room and soften the acoustics. And a full drop of fabric simply looks right at that scale.
Two examples from our projects
It helps to see how these choices land in a real house. Over the years we have furnished a good number of living rooms; two examples follow.
Inspiration
The living room of a penthouse
For the interior design of a penthouse we placed a fireplace made to our own design. The room is fairly large, so we created a second seating area and let the fireplace divide the two. It is open on both sides: you look straight through it, and the fire is part of the room wherever you sit.
The living room of a new-build villa
For clients we furnished a new-build villa in the style Bold Luxury. On the walls we mounted 3D wall panels in bog oak from Wonderwall Studios. The panels bring warmth to the room, and wood is a material that settles a space. We used the same panels in the kitchen, which ties the two rooms together.
Inspiration
If you would rather hand it over
Perhaps you would like to:
- furnish your living room to a high standard
- avoid expensive mistakes along the way
- see your ideas worked out, so you know whether they are feasible
During a design consultation we work your ideas through with you into an interior plan that fits how you want to live. And it does not stop at the living room: bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms are designed with the same care.
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Curious what we could do for your home? We are glad to meet, with no obligation.
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