Tag Archives | relaxing

Relaxing and Cozy Living Room Ideas

What makes a living room cozy? Is it a place to curl up relax. A place that feels secluded, warm and safe. A place to call your own. If so, the cozy living room ideas below will help you transform your space.

Secluded Seating

Try and have everything in arms reach. Say you like snuggling up on the couch. Then look to have a side table with a table lamp or floor lamp – close enough to reach. The side table is also great for putting down drinks without having to get up. And how about having a quilted blanket sprawling over your couch that you can curl up in?

Some other seating ideas include getting down on the floor just like in picture (1). Having a soft cushy rug and floor cushions makes for a bohemian style living room (or Moroccan). Have a look here for more ideas:

Having a deep and long couch lets you have space to lie down, and fill up with big cushions (2). How about hanging up a hammock in your living room (3)?

How To Add a Relaxing Indoor Hammock to Your Home

Those of you with large living rooms, look to create a little hideaway nook (A Cozy Getaway: Reading Nook Ideas). This can either be done by a window, by having a separate living room section with a floor table and floor pillows, or walling off an area (with curtain dividers or book shelves). Surround the space with piles of books and have a lamp nearby (Ideas Mood Board: DIY Room Dividers).

Calming Greens

Plants always have a calming and relaxing effect. So have a few around the living room (4). You can get fancy and have them play a more decorative role in the living room by either using vintage bottles as planters, or leather/rope hanging planters. How about having a terrarium?

A Softer Space

Try and add as much fabric as you can to your living room space. Use lots of cushions, area rugs, fabric wall hangings, even drapes that hang down from the ceiling. The fabric will really soften the space and make it feel cozy.

You can soften the walls of your living room by hanging art pieces. A gallery wall of canvas pieces, fabric, and photos would be a good addition.

Color Scheme

The color of your living room also helps create the cozy feeling you want. Check out some of the color style posts I’ve put up. Bright colors makes a room feel bright and spacious. While darker colours will make the room feel secluded, smaller, and more intimate (Ideas for Living Room Colors: Paint Palettes and Color Schemes).

Lighting Your Mood

In the day, a great feeling living room will be bathed in natural day light. So look to bring as much in as possible.

To create that cozy feeling at night, look to bring the lighting down. This means avoid using the ceiling lights and instead go for table and floor lamps, lanterns (6) (with battery candles), or a bowl of water with floating candles. For a more whimsical vibe hang up some string lights (5) (Home Decor Ideas: Beautiful Ways to Use String Lights Indoors).

Another idea would be to have a mood lamp like the one below. When it is grey and dull outside, paint the walls with yellow. If you are feeling all romantic, fill the space with dark purple. Or let the mood lamp softly change colors on its own.

The Yantouch Jellyfish mood lamp is available here from Amazon

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January 16, 2014 in Living Room

Relaxing and Cozy Living Room Lighting Ideas

So here are some ideas and pictures on how to light up a family styled living room. Not those huge living rooms, or the ones that are never used. These ideas are for rooms you always use – to watch tv, read, and relax in.

Let’s talk first about the more interesting living room lighting ideas, and then get into the more functional ones later. First up are some accent lighting design ideas (or what I like to call “style lighting”). If you want a well designed space, you need to layer the lighting in the room. Just using ceiling lights doesn’t cut it. You need to mix it up a bit, a ceiling light along with a floor or table lamp. Here are some other style lighting ideas that will help mix it up and layer the lighting in the room.

Style Lighting Ideas

Display Lighting: As the name suggest, this is used to showcase items around the living room. For example book case lighting. Or how about cabinet lights shining onto media players and their controls. These lights do make it easier to find the right book and use the media players – but they are mostly for design and style.

How about shining a light onto shelves to highlight family pictures. Or if you have art work – use a gallery light (hung onto the wall above the art piece) or just a side table light pointing up onto the art will work.

If you have an accent wall, one wall that is painted a different color or wallpapered differently than all the others to create a focal piece in the room, then this can be lit up too. The best way to do this would be with ceiling lights – like down lights that can be angled towards the wall, just like in picture (1).

A simple way of adding some accent lighting to your living room is to back light your TV, just like in picture (2). Adding this soft glow creates a relaxing ambiance in the room – and it also reduces eyestrain if you like watching TV in the dark. Another way to add a nice soft glow in the room is to put lights behind your couch, shining up onto the wall.

Mood Lighting: A great way to be in complete control of your living room lighting is to hook up your ceiling lights to a dimmer switch. This way you can instantly switch from a brightly lit living room to a more romantic one. Another way of adding mood lighting is to use a mood light, like the one in picture (3) (which can be bought here). If you want to create a romantic setting, then turn the mood light to a dark blue or purple. Or if it is a dark and dull day, with little sunshine outside, set the mood light to a bright green or yellow.

If you want to create a cozy vibe in the living room, avoid lighting the ceiling. Turn off your ceiling lights and use your table lamps and display lighting. Here are some other cozy inducing lighting ideas for a living room:

Floor lamps work well to create that cozy feel, but they can be placed next to the couch and also be used as reading lights
Use string and rope lights if you want to create a more enchanting feel – just like in picture (4)
A DIY idea would be to find a bunch of long branches, spray paint them, and then wrap string lights around them to create a soft glowing floor lamp (5)
Or for a more bohemian vibe, place some lanterns on the coffee table (6) and on the floor (these can be candle or battery powered)

Standard Lighting Ideas

When it comes to the standard light fixtures in your living room, a popular choice would be recessed lighting. These lighting fixtures are fitted into your ceiling, so everything is hidden creating a clean and modern looking living room. If you have a high ceiling, then pendant or track lighting will work best. Track lights are a great option because they only use one electrical outlet in the ceiling but you’ll have a number of lights. These individual lights can be pointed to different areas of the living room.

For a more creative ceiling lighting idea, have a look at cove lighting. Cove lighting is when you have a drop down ceiling, and lights are hidden away in a cutaway section. The light softly bounces off of the ceiling and walls and into the room. Another version of cove lighting is when you fit crown molding a few inches below the ceiling – lights sit on top of the molding, creating a soft glow in the room just like in picture (7).

For a beginner’s guide to home lighting design, have a look at my post here: The Simple Guide: Home Lighting Design Basics.

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