Minimalism No More: Bring Your Living Room Into 2017

It’s useful to periodically strip it back to basics, keep the aspects that you love, but remove everything which doesn’t give you pleasure. This gives you the opportunity to bring it up to date, without completely overhauling the entire room or completely repurchasing your entire set of furniture. If you need a few ideas for how to bring your living room into the 21st Century, keep on reading.

It’s all in the white and gray

The bright white look is so on trend at the moment, but it can be tricky to get right. The surfaces of the wall need to be perfectly smooth, as any imperfections will just right out of the wall at you. Using softer grays create a more forgiving look, with a touch of warmth and even an element of class. The great thing about both white and gray is that they give you a relatively blank canvass to work from, with regards accessorizing the rest of the room. There is nothing that doesn’t work with white or gray walls, and they bring a brightness, openness, and sense of modernity to even the smallest or dingiest of spaces.

Take a leaf from the Scandinavian book

The word on the interior design street is happiness, and coziness of the space they’re in. Although it does not translate necessarily directly to interior design, trends of the last year have been an offshoot of this. The idea being that people fill their homes with things which make them feel great, not just things which look stylish or on trend. So the mismatched furniture, wooden log cabin, and even the farmhouse kitchen all stem from this. They offer comfort and coziness over style, and the resulting look is homely and comforting, as well as pretty and rustic. The suggestion here isn’t that you overhaul your home, discarding anything which doesn’t bring you pleasure, but that you only bring in elements that make you happy and allow you to appreciate the moment.

Don’t obsess over minimalism

The barren, minimalist look is going out of style, and many people are celebrating this. It’s a high-maintenance style, and it hardly lends itself to comfort. While high levels of clutter aren’t the way forward, allowing yourself accessories and decorations which create a more interesting look is on trend at the moment. Using old, empty picture frames painted the same color as the wall is a great way to add texture and interest to the wall, and while it could be seen as clutter, it blends into the background but brings coziness to the room. Big, bold prints are on trend this season, particularly tropical leaf floral prints, and when introduced to a room they don’t add anything to minimalism, but they bring a visual texture which is particularly up to date.

Create a focal point

A room can seem a little bit lost when there is no focal point. In a bedroom, it’s usually the bed, in a dining room the table, but in a living room, the focal point can be trickier to find. A fireplace with an ornamental mantle piece is typical, but it only works with a particularly antique look. For a more modern room, a feature wall can work, but they can be harder to get right. 

Using large, modern items of furniture, in particular a sofa, can create the perfect living room focal point, drawing the eye in and putting the emphasis of the room on comfort. Companies such as Modern Digs Furniture offer brilliant statement pieces of furniture, which are both modern and highly functional, and a great addition to the room. If your room doesn’t seem quite right, and you can’t put your finger on why, create a focal point with furniture or artwork, and see the difference it can make.

Don’t keep everything matching

Mismatch furniture is the future. It’s cheaper, cuter, and it can add interest to a room with minimal effort. If you’re adding new lights to your room, choose lamps which don’t match – the different textures and styles add to a more bohemian look which is really on trend. 

If you like to frame artwork for the wall, choose art which doesn’t necessarily match, in frames which are mismatch too. You could even paint them different colors to add an additional level of interest. This trend for mismatching furniture and accessories makes shopping so much easier, and it can look really cute and modern too.

Embrace greenery

If you’ve been to any super cool, almost hipster cafes recently, you may have noticed just how on trend indoor plants are at the moment. Greenery has a magical ability to bring life, interest, brightness and happiness to a room. It softens the edges of a harsh room, it brings color to a monochromatic style, and it even helps to keep the air fresh and banish musty odors. The best thing about plants is the variety of textures, colors, and shapes they come in, making them perfect for decorating a room quite innocuously, but bringing a whole load of comforting texture and interest. Yes, they take a bit of care, but the more plants there are in a room, the more likely you are to remember to water them, right?

Bringing your home up to date is no longer about clearing the clutter and going full on minimalist anymore. On-trend styles this year focus on comfort, happiness and texture, and the boho look is completely in.

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