Small Living Room Ideas

When you don't have a lot of space to work with in your living room, it's easy to give in to the cramped feeling that small spaces create. However, simply rearranging some furniture or switching out some features can make your living room space seem much bigger, and it takes a practiced eye to learn the best ways to arrange sofas, coffee tables, and chairs throughout your living room. In this guide, we'll lay out some simple tips for transforming your cramped living room into a relaxing domestic paradise.

Try Some Glass Furniture

Furniture that you can see through doesn't seem to take up much space at all. While floor-to-ceiling glass windows are also great tools for making a small space seem bigger, make sure to complement your windows with a few different pieces of glass furniture.

If you've never owned tempered glass before, you might be afraid to put your feet up on your new glass coffee table at first. Unlike window glass, however, tempered glass is built to be incredibly strong, and it is nearly as durable as wood or steel.

In addition to a coffee table, you might also want to select some tempered glass end tables to match. You may even want to go so far as to select a see-through entertainment center that will make your TV seem like it is effortlessly levitating.

Put Some Mirrors on the Wall

Using mirrors to make your space look bigger may be one of the oldest tricks in the book, but the reason why this tactic is so popular is that it works like a charm. If they're big enough, mirrors can seem to double the size of a small living room, but you'll need to pick the right types of mirrors to pull off this effect in style.

Of course, covering an entire wall in mirrors is the best way to make your living room look bigger. However, this approach can be both expensive and visually overwhelming, which means that you might want to take a different tack.

Putting a few clusters of square mirrors on each wall can make your area seem bigger, and even if you only use a few smaller mirrors, the lighting and perceived space in your living room will improve. You also might want to try covering a wall in dozens of tiny, circular mirrors to create a mottled and visually appealing effect.

Use Minimalist Furniture

If you only have a small amount of space to work with in your living room, ornate or antique furniture probably isn't the right choice. Instead, you might want to try contemporary furniture styles that are designed to work hand-in-hand with constrained spaces.

While it might not seem like it at first glance, choosing a sofa that doesn't have arms can make your living room seem dramatically bigger. In addition, the fewer cushions your sofa has, the better, and you might also want to choose chairs that have no arms and minimal cushions. You may even want to go so far as to ditch your sofa altogether an opt for a loveseat or a similarly compact piece of living room furniture.

Make Your Upper Areas Interesting

In your small living room, the floor area is the most crowded part of the room. End tables, sofas, and armchairs all fight for space toward the bottom half of your living room, and if you don't divert attention elsewhere, your guests will immediately be met with an oppressive atmosphere when they step into your sanctuary.

There are a number of ways that you can draw the eye toward the upper, uncluttered areas of your living room. For instance, you can choose a wallpaper with vertical stripes, which will draw the eye toward the ceiling and away from the floor. You can also use interesting wallpaper on your ceiling; you might want to recreate a blue sky or pick a striking color like sunshine yellow to brighten things up inside.

It also might be a good idea to place a number of paintings toward the upper reaches of your living room. If you pick the right pieces of art, your guests will be too busy staring up high to even notice the cramped conditions down below.

Keep Your Colors Light

Dark colors can instantly make your small living room look oppressive. Some minimalist interior designers might go so far as to suggest that you make every item in your living room white, but if you ever want to open a bottle of red wine for a party, you'll need to cover every surface in plastic if you take this antiseptic decor approach.

Bright white walls lighten up your living room, and you may also want to paint your ceiling the same shade to make it easier for the eye to flow from surface to surface within your space. While white furniture might not be right for you, picking light colors like light gray, beige, and pastel pink will help things seem unburdened and airy inside your abode. Finish off the look you're going for by placing a few light-colored paintings along the walls in your living room.

Add Some Plants

There's something about living things that adds a lot of brightness and comfort your living room. If you're stumped on how you can incorporate the rest of these ideas into your small living room setup, you can at least find space to put some perennial indoor flowers or lush, leafy things. If you've run out of space on the surfaces in your living room, remember that you can always hang some plants from baskets in the corners of your modern sanctuary.