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Living Room Decorating Ideas to Design For!

So you're trying to come up with living room decorating ideas and...

You have colors you kind of like...

You're pretty sure what style of design you want to use...

You have some furniture and you've looked at some new things here and there...

There are a few accessories that catch your eye...

But, you just don't have a plan and you don't know where to go from here! Ugh...

Chin up. It's OK. Let's talk about building your space. Whether you're just trying to add a couple of things to update the look or you're starting over from scratch (or for the very first time), we know we can help.

Color

As far as living room decorating ideas go, great color ideas will get you a long way.

Before we say too much more about colors, let's just make this important point. Do not go any further unless you can walk in room and answer the question, "How I do want to feel when I walk in this living room?" Next ask yourself the question, "Would my family and guests feel the same as I would?"

Feel good about your answers? Picking your colors should be easy at this point. Let's talk some more about this in our section on living room paint colors.

How about some real people and real living rooms? Kelly's Korner has brought together hundreds of folks to show off their living rooms. Go have a look. But come right back because we have quite a bit to show you ourselves!

Show Us Where You Live Friday at Kelly's Korner

Design Style

Living room decorating ideas, by their nature, should flow from a particular design style. That doesn't mean that the style should dictate all your ideas, though. Our opinion is that rooms look best when design style meets the personality of the designer.

Here's a quick rundown of design styles. See if this matches what you already had in mind.

Traditional - classic and comfortable, no surpises, very predictable

Country - friendly and casual, earth tones, often lighter woods, vintage accents

Rustic - charm, style, texture with logs, twigs, and animal accents, these days its quite sophisticated as well

Mission - natural materials, geometric design, back-to-basics feel

Contemporary - "the style of the day", sleek, cleanlines, spare and unique

Southwest - Native American influences, kokopellis, bright blues, reds, and oranges with earth tones

Asian - intricate detail, bold color, natural influences, peace and serenity

These are the basics. There are many sub-styles as well. You can learn more about them right here, Decorating Styles for Home Interiors. The biggest thing to remember about style is not to worry about completely true to any one style. Mix things up as appropriate.

Another site that does a great job with decor styles is Themed Home Decor

Furniture Placement

The key with living room furniture placement is "make it flow". Take stock of where your entryways are located. Make traffic move behind the furniture, instead of through it.

Divide and conquer a long room. Make it into two seating areas with different purposes. In one of our old apartments, we positioned our entertainment center and sofa diagonally to create a TV area and, across the room, created a reading area with an end table, lamp and accent chair.

When trying to design a small living room, not doing too much is the big focus.

Pick a focal point. What's the main feature of the room? Fireplace...Armoire...A picture? Locate that focal point in a prominent area of the room and build out from it.

It's not just about furniture, either. What about using area rugs as a key strategy in furniture placement? See what our friend Gordon, from Area Rug Tips has to say about that. His living room decorating ideas are pretty good.

Eager to learn the basics of living room decorating?

Sign up for our e-mail course, 5 Steps To A More Stylish Living Room.

You'll get a new lesson in your inbox every couple of days!

Time to get your creative juices flowing!

Storage

Feeling a little cluttered as you walk around your living room today?

You are definitely not alone. A common complaint we hear is that there's just stuff everywhere! It's hard to put together a new design when you're worried about where all your necessities of life are going to be stored.

Not only is furniture placement important, but what kind of furniture are you placing? Are you taking advantage of coffee tables, end tables, armoires, entertainment centers, ottomans and chests to keep the clutter to a minimum?

When Jack started getting a little older, we found that his toys were just everywhere. We wanted him upstairs, in the living room, with us but we also wanted to keep his books, DVD's, puzzles and "diggies" out of sight. Here's how we did it...Living Room Design with Children

Take advantage several different types of furniture to help you get a handle on your living room storage struggles.

Accessorizing

What goes where?
What fits with what?
Do I have too much stuff, or not enough?
It looks so plain there, what else can I put with it?

Ever said any of these things while trying to accessorize your living room?

We've all been there and it wasn't always easy to make it through to the other side...to truly end up happy with the look you've created. Maybe you're still not happy with how you've accented your living room.

That's why we created this website to begin with. Coming up with great living room decorating ideas can be difficult, especially when we start talking about accessories.

Well Accessorized Earth Tone Living Room

Here are our thoughts on living room accessorizing/accenting.

Have an overall theme. This gives the room a personal touch and says, "This is what I like." or "This is what's important to me." In our living room, the theme leans towards France. We use fleur-de-lis and crosses to unify the room.

(Not to get off-topic, but we also use themes in our kitchen - roosters - and with our Christmas tree - snowmen)
Stay near your design style. Modern geometric vases won't play too well in your rustic setting. Mix a little bit of mission or country with rustic? No problem.
Use greenery to add depth and fill space. We get especially good use of greenery atop our armoire. We weave it through our accents to create a more casual and comfortable feeling.
Leave enough space on surfaces. A centerpiece atop a tray with some coffee table books is plenty. No need to occupy each corner of the table.

Think a living room is tough to accessorize, what about a family room? Have no fear, we've taken some time to discuss family room decorating ideas too.,/p>

Here's some more thoughts... Finishing Touches Perk Up a Room

If you work at it you can come up with great living room decorating ideas as we hope we've just shown you.

Tell us about your Best Living Room Decorating Idea ever!

Share Your Idea!

In the End

All you need is some basic information about choosing the right colors, design styles, furniture placement and accessorizing and you can put together a fantastic living room.

Jen and I are not licensed professionals. We simply know a little bit about alot of concepts and we know what we like. We put things in certain places and stand back for a look. If it's not right, we try something else. We just come up with living room decorating ideas and then see if they work.

Sometimes, it's just magic from the very beginning and that's the most rewarding part. You know just what you've put together looks great. Then, your neighbors and friends visit and they rave about what you've done. There are few better feelings than that.

Keep at it, try not to get frustrated, and don't use this site as your only source of information. There are so many great resources for living room decorating ideas out there. We hope you like coming here for the personal touch we offer, though.

Time to start putting together your own living room decorating ideas.

Good Luck!!!

Need some more help?

Ok. There's a store in Atchison, KS called Nell Hills and it's absolutely our favorite place to go for great living room decorating ideas, furniture, framed art, accents and they have their own line of home decorating books. Check it out!

Whoops!! Almost forgot. Here are a couple sites that you may find useful in your quest to find living room decorating ideas, as well.

Home and Garden Decorating and Room Design - Create your room design online by yourself or let us help with your room layout solutions. We provide interior decorating and design services, home and garden news, and info on home shows and events.

For an interesting view on home decorating, visit Home Decorating Room by Room and use this free online workbook. Find ways to discover and use your creativity to develop rooms you've always dreamed of creating.

A great directory of home decorating sites is at Gourt.com - Decorating Resources

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