Design Details: Five Ways To Create A Room That Works

Part 1: THE LIVING ROOM. Yes, a new occasional series! I know, I spoil you. Five ways to create a living room that will work for you, from shelves to room planning through to coffee table prowess.

[cover photo credit: Lucinda Sanford via Sheerluxe].

Good morning and hello to a new occasional Wednesday series about creating rooms that work. I know, control yourselves. It’s been a while since I upped the ante for the Wednesday gang and I thought this would be a very good place to start. The idea is that every now and then, I’ll pick a room of the house and dissect (not literally, that would be odd) how to get the space right with minimum fuss and even better, minimum cost. One of the most often asked questions both here and on my Instagram account is how to get a room RIGHT when you can’t see the wood from the trees. When you’ve had a room that’s looked pretty much the same for the last five years, it’s hard to switch it up or know what to do to transform it and change the feel of it. And changing the feel of it is what it’s all about.

We want our rooms to make us feel good. That’s a fact. You always know if a room is not right if you walk into it and your heart doesn’t lift. If your room isn’t making you feel like that, then you need to up your game. I have said before, have said below and will repeat endlessly until the end of time that EVERYTHING in your home should make you happy. Everything. If you don’t like it, feel meh about it, if it makes you grimace when you see it, from colours to accessories to ALL the stuff, then you need to remove it from the premises pronto (there is definitely a joke in here about husbands but it’s only Wednesday so I’ll hold back, ha).

It doesn’t take much to change a space, often, in fact, just a coat of paint. If you narrow down your furniture and possessions to only what you love, then most of the time (unless they’re massive and can’t feasibly fit in), they’ll work in your home. You just need to plan it out. But what if you don’t have a focal point in your living room and it’s just a blank box? Or you are unsure what you really like or what look you want to achieve? (this is a fair enough feeling, tbh, when we’re bombarded with social media rooms on an ongoing basis). My mission here is to help you get your head around the process of creating a room that will sing to you. So let’s start with the living room and five ways to create a space that really works.

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