3 Easy Ways to Elevate Your Living Room Design
If you’ve been in your home for a while, elevating any room can feel difficult because the spaces are already set in their ways. This goes doubly for the most lived-in room of all: your living room. But DIY-er and designer Ashley Basnight has three principles to keep in mind to get your refresh project up and running.
Ashley took us through a from-scratch overhaul, but you can totally achieve elevation with small touches, like the ones Ashley found online at The Home Depot. With their surprisingly diverse offering of big and small items, they put everything in one place — whether you’re starting from square one or working with what you’ve already got. See Ashley’s Home Depot finds and pick up some pro tips for making your living room more lively.
1. Start with a well-thought-out layout
Getting a rough idea of where your main seating, lighting, and table pieces will go will show you how they let you use the space. Then you can adjust their placements as needed to match how you actually want to use the space. Because when your couch and coffee table feel like they’re in the most natural, convenient places, you’ll feel totally in control of your space.
As Ashley puts it, “Layout is everything when designing a well-thought-out living room. The placement of where things go can really elevate a design.” She started with a refined but approachable faux leather sofa, a fun brass tripod lamp, and this warm wooden coffee table, with slightly flared legs for character and plenty of drawer space for keeping the tabletop clutter-free. Those touches are small, but they start you on the right foot to having a room you absolutely love.
2. Have an anchor piece
In addition to deciding on your layout, knowing what your anchor piece will be can help guide all your other decorating decisions.
Whether that’s a couch, coffee table, or rug (like the cream colored Moroccan print here), the anchor piece provides direction on smaller and mid-sized chairs, tables, plants, and artwork. That becomes extremely useful as you get to tiny touches like throw pillows, blankets, picture frames, and any knickknacks you want around — because you’ll always have a base design scheme to guide color, pattern, and finishing choices.
Ashley found these hassle-free artificial olive trees, which blend right in with the natural materials in the sofa and coffee table. The raised texture on both the earthy, olive throw and chunky knit pouf also feel like extensions of the high-pile rug. And while the brown fabric armchair has a distinct style from the sofa, it creates a transition point out of the living room and into the rest of the house.
3. Add finishing touches
Now that the space feels grounded, it’s time to spruce it up! This is probably the most fun step of any refresh, and it’s something you can do for any space in your home even if there isn’t time or budget to rethink those places from scratch.
The frameless wall print Ashley found brings the life from the bountiful planters onto the wall, while little touches of greenery reinforce the natural theme (supported by a sturdy concrete accent table). And if you’d like the space to feel a bit bigger but might be short on square footage, an oversized windowpane mirror achieves that in the most compact way possible: You’re literally gazing out at all your beautiful design work!
That’s all it takes to elevate your living room: a careful layout, something to keep you grounded, and small touches that fit your style. Watch our other designers use the same starting pieces and their own decor selections from The Home Depot to transform this warm-contemporary space into a modern eclectic and grandmillennial chic masterpieces.