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Day 6: Use Some Styling Tricks With the major cleaning done and the clutter gone, it’s time to give your room polish. Place a stack of books and a few small objects on your coffee table. Revive potted plants by trimming off dead leaves and pulling them out from dark corners where they may not be getting enough light. Pull seating a bit closer together. Refresh your mantel by removing decor you are tired of and rearranging what’s left. Stack some books on your bookcase horizontally.
Day 4: Make It Sparkle and Shine Cleaning tasks: Clean mirrors and windows. If your living room is on the ground floor and the windows are easy to access, go outside and clean the exterior of your living room windows, too. If you have a glass coffee table or glass shelving, today is the day to get it gleaming.
Day 3: Bust Bookcase Clutter Decluttering tasks: The big task for today is to organize and edit the bookcase and media cabinet. Your goal, should you choose to accept it, is to pare back the contents of your shelving to the point where everything fits with room to spare. Having extra wiggle room on each shelf means your space won’t be overstuffed again the moment you bring home a new book or movie. A note for parents: Giving a few baskets or bins of toys a permanent home in the living room makes for easier cleanup. Rotate the toys with a new selection from your child’s room every few weeks to keep it interesting.
Day 2: Clear the Floors Cleaning tasks: Fresh rugs and clean, open floors make a huge difference in the way a room looks and feels. Drop off area rugs to be cleaned, schedule a steam cleaner for carpeting if needed, and mop or polish hardwood floors. Decluttering tasks: Pick up everything off the floor, including in sneaky places like beneath the couch and coffee table.
Day 1: Deal With Dust Cleaning tasks: If you have a good vacuum with attachments, that’s the fastest and easiest way to banish dust in the living room. There’s no denying this is a lot of work, so consider this your exercise for the day. Vacuum the room from top to bottom, starting with cobwebs on the ceiling and working your way down to the floor. Window treatments like blinds and shades can be vacuumed using an attachment. If your curtains are washable, take them down and toss them in the wash on the gentlest cycle. Vacuum or dust light fixtures, the tops of bookcases, picture frames and the mantel. Decluttering tasks: Remove anything that does not belong in the room — other people’s stuff, dishes from the kitchen, stray socks — and return them to their rightful places.
Track arm. Track arms are straight, without a roll, meaning they’re extremely versatile. They can work in a modern space, a traditional space and anything in between. Tobi Fairley Interior Design Track arms can come in different heights and a variety of widths. When placed in a room with traditional elements, like a wingback chair or classic art, a track arm sofa can work to modernize the space.
Rolled arm. The rolled arm is also a traditional shape, but it’s more casual than the English roll arm. When paired with a slipcover, rolled arms create an even more casual vibe. They can help make a transitional space feel comfortable and relaxed. Matthew Caughy Interiors If you want to dress up a rolled arm sofa and make it more formal, choose a fancier fabric like a velvet or add a nailhead trim. Rolled arms are a good bet if you want a comfortable spot to lean, because they’re usually fairly tall and their rounded shape is comfortable even without a pillow.
Rolled arm. The rolled arm is also a traditional shape, but it’s more casual than the English roll arm. When paired with a slipcover, rolled arms create an even more casual vibe. They can help make a transitional space feel comfortable and relaxed. Matthew Caughy Interiors If you want to dress up a rolled arm sofa and make it more formal, choose a fancier fabric like a velvet or add a nailhead trim. Rolled arms are a good bet if you want a comfortable spot to lean, because they’re usually fairly tall and their rounded shape is comfortable even without a pillow.
English roll arm. The English roll arm is low and set back with a slight roll. It’s by far the most traditional style arm and will dress up a space. Worried about these sofa arms looking too traditional? Update the style by using tapered legs. Laura Hardin While English arms lend an air of formality to a sofa, especially when they’re paired with a skirt, they can be just as at home in a cottage or beach house. Since this style arm is generally on the low side, it’s not the most supportive.
English roll arm. The English roll arm is low and set back with a slight roll. It’s by far the most traditional style arm and will dress up a space. Worried about these sofa arms looking too traditional? Update the style by using tapered legs. Laura Hardin While English arms lend an air of formality to a sofa, especially when they’re paired with a skirt, they can be just as at home in a cottage or beach house. Since this style arm is generally on the low side, it’s not the most supportive.
This living space in Melbourne, Australia, provides a great example of how to incorporate varied style preferences into one room successfully. The mix of animal and crocheted pillows, primitive Argentina art, an industrial lamp and a bold patterned rug work great together because they repeat colors to create a cohesive design.
Does your room showcase your style and color preferences? As much as neutral schemes can be calming and beautiful, accent colors and stylish furnishings can bring a room to life. In this photo, bright orange and golden yellow pillows warm up the gray sectional along with the orange and yellow accents on the shelving beyond. Wall shelves and a coffee table reveal an affinity for clean-lined furniture in light woods, while the rug and gold pillow fabric at the far end of the sofa demonstrate a fondness for graphic patterns.
Have you added window treatments? Window coverings can range from draperies, as shown in this photo, to window toppers and hard treatments like shades, blinds or shutters. Window treatments need to be beautiful as well as functional, providing privacy, darkening, sun protection and insulation from outside elements when needed. In this photo, the draperies add height to the room and reinforce the color palette, making the room feel more finished.
Do you have an ample-size rug that augments your design? Rugs not only help delineate spaces in open floor plans but also ground a furniture grouping, or help define it as a contained space. When selecting a rug, ensure that it supports your room’s style and that it is large enough to tuck fully under your seating area. If not, then place front furniture legs on top of the rug, as in this photo, to create a connection between the rug and the furnishings.
Do you have stylish side and coffee tables? Not only are tables practical for holding lamps, drinks and decor like trays, books or flowers, but also they can make a design statement. These quirky stacked tables are a great example of how to have an impact when mixed with simple furnishings. If you have upholstery that looks heavy — skirted, thick legs or no legs showing — try offsetting them with tables that show more leg for a lighter, balanced feel (and vice versa). In this photo, a gallery-style wall of art adds a personal touch and vibrant color to the room, as do the pillows and plants.
This photo provides a great example of a U-shaped seating arrangement that enhances the fireplace focal point, providing an enticing place to sit. The striated horizontal tile and lit shelving flanking the fireplace call further attention to that wall.
Do you have a cozy seating arrangement that enhances your focal point? Of course a wide range of options exist on furniture placement, but by placing your sofa or love seat facing your focal point with chairs laced in to create an intimate grouping, you naturally draw attention toward that focal point, whether a fireplace, artwork or view beyond. If pointing your sofa toward the focal point isn’t an option or doesn’t look quite right, try flanking your focal point with the furniture grouping instead to enhance it like in this photo. Here, the bold green chair and colorful decor on the mantel give emphasis to the fireplace, while the yellow pillow and flowers add a cheerful pop of color.
Do you have a focal point? Many features in a room can be its focal point, including a fireplace, built-in shelves or even a grouping like a chest with a lamp and art overhead. If a focal point doesn’t seem to exist in your living room, think about where your eye goes naturally when entering the room and create a point of interest there with furnishings, such as a sofa table and lamp or maybe a curio cabinet with decorative items. To emphasize your focal point, add finishes or decor that will make it stand out: an accent wall can draw the eye, as can bold artwork, contrasting decor or a stunning piece of furniture. In this photo, a wide doorway frames the focal point beyond: the sofa and art. The white sofa, light walls and rug create a bold contrast against the eye-catching red pillows and dark tables. The large artwork pulls together the different colors in the room.
printed grasscloth, with a pattern that evokes Japanese watercolors. The soft gray-green print is a lovely complement to the tone-on-tone gray bedscape.
Grasscloth wallcoverings come in a bazillion colors and styles, including metallics and prints. In this perfectly curated living room by Landed Interiors & Homes, the blue-gray grasscloth walls add tailored elegance and just the right amount of texture to offset the harder edges of the furnishings.
watercolor-esque floral wallpaper selected by Dayna Flory Interiors
white oak ceiling beams and white oak on the far wall
white oak ceiling beams and white oak on the far wall
white oak ceiling beams and white oak on the far wall
wood headers draw the eye upward and make the ceilings feel higher.
vertical wood slats to create an open feeling for the staircase.
vertical wood slats to create an open feeling for the staircase.
vertical wood slats to create an open feeling for the staircase.
“We call this interior study the map room, and it’s really for him,” Tharp says. “The map wall they’d seen was what made them call us, so we had to give him a map room,” she says with a laugh. The starting point was a celestial ceiling, and Tharp anchored the room in a starburst rug. “These things reference his interest in astronomy without being cliche,” she says.
figuring out the layout for the large room was a challenge. Tharp met it by facing this sofa toward the television and adding swivel chairs that can spin around to enjoy the park views. “I created multiple zones for a crowd,” she says.
hidden remote-control shades installed over all the windows.
In the living room, the fireplace and park views are competing focal points. This made laying out the furniture tricky. Tharp responded by designing two sofas with curved backs that can serve both views. “I drew two curves and one had a partially open back.
The painting by Nicole Chesney is layers of oil paint on etched mirrored glass.
Incorporate the Five Elements Don’t stop with potted plants — to really embrace nature in your home, make sure all five elements are represented. They are: water (images of water, a fountain, flowers in a bowl of water), earth (stone, plants), fire (candles, incense, fireplace), metal (furniture, tools) and wood (furniture, beams).
Sawmill House, in Victoria, Australia, by design studio Archier, explores the possibility of leveraging the concrete that goes to waste each year. It is comprised of 270 1-ton concrete blocks.
The sconces in this hallway by LMV Design cast light up and down the wall, but not as much outward. This makes sense for lighting the walls so the space feels well-lit and easy to navigate at any time of day, and they look decorative as well.
Store Heavy Items Down Low You should never have to balance on a stepladder while trying to lift something heavy. Keep heavy items at or below waist height, including boxes, kitchen equipment (those dutch ovens and stand mixers weigh a ton!) and anything else that takes some real effort to lift. And if you live in earthquake country, this is doubly important: You don’t want heavy items falling out of high cupboards and landing on someone’s head.
Photographs and paper memorabilia should be stored in acid-free containers or albums, and textiles should be kept in breathable storage boxes or bags designed for that purpose.
Use shelf risers to increase cabinet capacity, store sheet pans and trays in a vertical holder, and use wall-mounted holders to store brooms and mops so they won’t tip over.
Anytime you have a drawer where you’ll be storing small items, use a drawer organizer. Use them for cutlery in the kitchen, office supplies in your desk, small and useful household items in your junk drawer, and daily essentials (sunglasses, keys) in a drawer near the entry.
When you’re organizing your stuff, remember this and group everything you need to complete a task in the same place. For example, you could make one box for medications, another for spare office supplies, one for holiday cookie cutters and sprinkles, and so on. Labeled shoebox-size boxes, buckets or baskets work well for grouping small items together.
Make Open Storage Beautiful Every home can use a combination of open and closed (i.e., hidden) storage. But what you choose to store on your open shelving should be visually pleasing. In the living room, this is a good place for books and pretty objects, not beaten-up board games and stacks of video games. Likewise in the kitchen, open shelving is the place to put your matching sets of clear drinking glasses or favorite teacups, not the plastic food storage containers.
Active vs. Passive Zones Active zones are the spots in your home that you pass or touch daily (usually multiple times a day), and include the entryway, top drawers and eye-level shelves and cabinets. Passive zones are the less frequently used spaces in your home, including the guest room, garage or basement, very high and very low shelves, and nooks deep within closets. A common organizing mistake is to clutter your prime active zones with items you don’t frequently need. For example: Don’t keep your spare lightbulbs in the top drawer in the kitchen when you only need to grab one every few months!
Slate
The mudroom floor tile spills into the kitchen in a playful way. “This was a much nicer solution than a dead stop between the two,”
Day 7 and Beyond: Do Daily Maintenance Keep your living room looking great by committing to a few simple daily maintenance tasks. Do “go backs” at the end of each evening, returning things that belong in other rooms to their rightful homes. Practice a one-in, one-out policy. If you get a new book, movie or throw pillow, choose an old one to let go of.
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