How to completely change your living room in five easy steps

The living room is one of the most used spaces in the home, so if it doesn’t feel right then, perhaps it’s time to think about an update. Here are five of the easiest ways to refresh your living area so you’ll feel like you’re walking into a completely new home.

Let the light in

When it comes to creating the right atmosphere in your living room, encouraging natural light is hugely important. If you currently have heavy curtains, consider swapping these for lightweight blinds that will allow light to flood through your windows.  Your windows’ condition can also control how much light enters your home, so keep this in mind. A cracked, condensed, or foggy window may not yield the best results. Fortunately, solutions like a good glass window replacement will not only fix this but keep your house dry and free of draughts. This, in turn, can lower your energy costs and increase the value of your house. This will also make the room appear brighter and therefore, surprisingly, larger. Having enough natural light in our homes has also been proven to improve our mental health because it reduces stress and increases the production of serotonin – a hormone that provides energy and makes us feel happy.

Update the flooring

Pull up those old carpets and replace them with solid or engineered wood flooring to instantly and dramatically change the look of your space. Research has found that hardwood flooring is something that prospective home buyers always look for so if you’re planning on putting your home on the market sometime soon, this is an investment that’s well worth taking. If your budget is tight, consider laminate flooring which is less than half the price of real wood and less prone to stains and scratches.

Mix up the colour scheme

By far, this is certainly the cheapest and easiest transformation you can undertake, but first, you need to plan your colour scheme. We recommend putting a mood board together so you can consider what may and may not work in your space. This way you’ll avoid making any disastrous mistakes! Once you’ve decided on colours, you’d be surprised at just how much of an effect a fresh lick of paint will have on your interior design.

Experiment with finishing touches

Last but not least, the soft furnishings and accessories that you choose are one of the easiest ways you can change how your room looks, alongside helping to create the perfect atmosphere. Without blowing your budget, you can be inspired by the latest trends and pick up relatively inexpensive items that will inject some much-needed character into your living area. Remember that maximum impact can often be achieved with minimum effort meaning that sometimes even the smallest changes can have the desired effect.

Practice your Feng-Shui

Moving your furniture around can establish a completely new look for your room, and it’s something you can do without spending any money at all. Consider the room from a different perspective and plan on moving some of your larger pieces of furniture around to open the space up. The inclusion of bi-folding doors will have the same effect. If you do want to do something a tad more drastic, moving a doorway or a window can bring a whole host of possibilities to a room that you’d never have noticed before.

Images courtesy of Pexels

(Collaborative post)

By Rachel Newcombe.