Transform Your Living Room Design Using Prints, Cushions, Paint
Any browsing of interior design blogs, magazines and Internet searches will showcase the popular idea of transforming a room with a new colorful and balanced array of prints. Sounds obvious but many people choose a much more complicated path.
Adding or changing prints involve rugs, wall hangings, cushions, wallpaper, canvas prints, wall pictures and various other items. The real benefit of using prints is that it is relatively cheap and temporary. You can adapt and modify the design in the future to keep the room interesting and vibrant. You can do it seasonally or whenever you feel like a change.
It is not as permanent as buying new furniture such as a lounge suite or re-painting the walls.
You can change the mood, the aesthetic and even adopt a particular theme or genre. For example you may go ancient Egyptian, use a beach theme or adopt a Middle Eastern look for winter with warm rugs, pictures and wall hangings.
This article shows you how to use prints to transform and enliven a living room with lots of tips and advice about what works and how to maintain symmetry and balance.
Tips for Using Prints to Transform a Living Room
Wallpaper - once regarded as so 1970s - is enjoying something of a renaissance. There are now new varieties of wallpaper choices, fabrics and styles employing new and exiting technologies, so that adding texture, depth, vibrancy and a point of difference to a living room is very easy to do by refreshing the wallpaper. The odd new trend is clashing of bold prints that works well in the home and provides a very modern look. However maintaining symmetry in the design is very important to stop the design reverting to chaos. It is important to leave lots of blank space between all of the clashing prints to avoid chaos. Keeping the print placement even and symmetrical also helps with the design
Cushions and Cushion Covers - are super simple ways to add a splash of color and texture into a room. You can even use zip-on covers so that they an be replaced frequently and kept clean. You can used the many magazines and websites for inspiration
Rugs - A colouful rug can become the centerpiece of a living room design to set a theme for a new design. A bright new rug an add airy spaciousness to many rooms if there is adequate space available room.
Canvas Prints - There are a wide variety of canvas prints available relatively cheaply. Many come in standard sizes so that it is relatively easy to replace them. Many frame designs may it easy to insert new prints and so you can avoid the expense of having the prints framed.
Wall Hangings - Many people forget wall hangings, but they can be very interesting additions to certain design styles adding warm and color.
Maintaining Harmony in Design
- Experiment - Most design shops will allow you to take samples home. Visit as many design showrooms as you can and take photographs and so how they would work in your own home.
- Playing It Safe With Simple Neutral Background Color - Using various shades of neutral colors so as cream, gray, off-white or light brown, with highlights and occasional splashes of color, works well, especially in small rooms.
- Colors - Choose colors so that the eye is drawn to the color elements – not the design itself. Consider using one color that is used throughout in various combinations to maintain a cohesive look where all the elements are linked together. It only requires a small dash of color to make this work, and so you are not restricted.
- Mixing It Up - Avoid using the same scale, size and patterns right next to each other. Mixing these elements up can still maintains harmony and the variety add lots of interest that may be lost if the size of the elements such as the prints on the wall are all the same.
- Choosing the Pattern - Mixing and matching various patterns is certainly acceptable and is actually preferred by many interior designers, but it can be overdone. The harmony and symmetry could be lost. One trick is to mix patterns, with some solid color patches and elements to avoid overwhelming the room design.
- How Many Patterns can be Used in the one Room - Generally it is best to only used three to four different patterns in a small to medium size room. Use a variety of sizes, shapes and scales to allow more patterns to be used without clashing.
- Remember to the Texture - The feel of the fabric and its texture on rugs, wall hangings, and cushion covers adds extra dimensions to the design.