What should be a living room in a modern house?

The term “living room” was first coined by wise Buddhist monks. To provide shelter for unexpected guests and at the same time to protect their home, they decided to equip a separate room. Guests in it were provided with the most necessary: ​​warmth, a place for lunch and rest. Over the centuries, this view of living rooms has undergone dramatic changes. Now this main room of the dwelling is designed to be the most functional, cozy, stylish and modern.

The key stage in arranging a living room is the choice of the tasks it performs. This is a resting place where the whole family gathers every day for heartfelt conversations by the fireplace or watching a home theater. The relaxation area should be fully conducive to relaxation. It's not enough just to hang a TV on the wall for this: you need to equip a comfortable place to watch your favorite TV shows.

Storage systems (wardrobes, dressers, shelves, sideboards) are often placed in the living room, in which personal belongings, clothes, books and other accessories of the owners of the house are stored. The work area and home library located in the living room provide maximum privacy and quiet. They are traditionally located in the back of the room. To isolate the area, use a roller blind or screen.

If guests often stay overnight, the living room can serve as a bedroom. The ideal option for such a solution is a sofa bed, which serves as an element of relaxation during the day and turns into a bed at night. No less relevant now is a pull-out bed, which hides in a closet for a day. Furniture with transformation is an excellent solution for the interior of the living room.

The current trend in interior design is the integration of living spaces. A living room combined with a dining room and a kitchen is a rather fashionable solution today. Furniture is used to separate the soft area from the dining area (for example, transparent light shelves, a sofa with its back turned to the dining area). A bar counter can act as a zoning element.

If someone from the household loves to play music, the hall can be an ideal place for organizing a music salon. The concert venue can be decorated with a podium. The piano placed on it will look elegant and aristocratic. It is worth choosing the appropriate accessories for this situation.

Any style direction is relevant for modern halls. Let's consider a few.

The interior in classic style is preferred by people of mature age with exquisite taste. The direction is characterized by calm light colors, natural finishing materials, high-quality furniture and semi-antique decor elements. For such a living room, columns made of marble or plaster, stucco molding and any embossed decorations, forged cornices, a fireplace, gilding will be relevant.

The mountain lodge style in the Swiss Alps has been gaining more and more popularity in Europe lately. Such an interior will appeal to people who adore the warmth of the hearth, simplicity and practicality. The hallmarks of this trend are the protruding beams on the ceiling, rough stone in the finish, massive raw board on the floor.

The central figure of the living room is traditionally a fireplace, near which the entire interior of the house is focused. As decorative elements, you can use sheep skins or imitation fur instead of rugs, stuffed wild animals, weapons on the walls.

A living room in the spirit of a chalet will be appropriate in a country house made of timber or logs.

Minimalism attracts with the amount of free space, the functionality of furniture items and the complete lack of decor. The style is characterized by neutral colors, low-rise furniture of strict forms and practical textiles. Such an interior allows you to take a break from the frantic pace of modern life in noisy metropolitan areas. It is distinguished by frame and modular furniture without frills with the possibility of transformation.

The industrial loft style is more often chosen by representatives of the younger generation and creative individuals. He skillfully combines modern trends and elements of unfinished renovation. Characteristic features of the style are peeling plaster, brickwork or its imitation, open communication systems, open planning and the absence of partitions.

The aristocratic baroque living rooms are designed to showcase the power and wealth of their owners. In the decor of the premises, frescoes and themed murals, abundant stucco molding, wallpapers with a silk-screen effect, patterns with monograms are welcome. Luxurious ornate furniture should be richly decorated with curls, carvings and inlays.

The pretentious setting suggests an ivory tint and gilded surfaces. The floor should be paved with marble tiles with semi-precious stones. High quality textiles are presented in velvet, satin and brocade. Stylistic materials are expensive, emphasizing the solemnity and pomp of the interior.

The modern building materials market offers a wide selection of wall decoration products. Several of them can be noted.

Wallpaper is the most popular material. A rich assortment and an affordable price range allow even the most pretentious buyer to choose the right option. Canvases can be of a wide variety, including simple, single-layer, paper-backed canvases.

This finishing material allows you to create the most unusual compositions on the walls. Its only drawback is the fact that it is only suitable for perfectly flat surfaces.

Decorative plaster in any living room looks extravagant. A uniform drawing, plot illustration can serve as decoration. Choosing a relief in the form of a picture for wall cladding, you can be sure that it will be unique (it is almost impossible to repeat the drawing in this technique).

Natural or decorative stone is a reliable and durable finishing material. It allows you to bring to life the most unexpected design ideas. She is able to turn the living room into Ali Baba's cave or give it the effect of the Middle Ages.

When decorating a living room floor in a house, the most successful options are:

• Parquet - a simple and durable solution. Natural wood always looks spectacular, creates an atmosphere of warmth and comfort. Not everyone can afford this option, because parquet is an expensive material.

• Laminate has an attractive appearance, high wear resistance and a relatively affordable price. The aesthetic surface skillfully imitates valuable wood species, so laminate flooring is often confused with parquet board. It does not have solid wood in its composition, but this does not detract from its merits.

• Tile not always typical for the living room, although this version of the material is convenient to install, practical and unpretentious to maintain. The floor covering itself is quite cold to the touch, therefore, when choosing it, it is worth considering the possibility of floor heating.

• Carpet adds coziness and homely warmth to the room, it is pleasant to sit and lie on it even in the cold season. The coating provides a high level of sound insulation, but it is difficult to attribute it to practical finishing options: it absorbs all the dirt and foreign odors.

This material is quite flexible, it allows you to bring to life the most unexpected design ideas. Multilevel curly ceilings not only look spectacular, they:

• open up ample opportunities for zoning a room;

• help to visually change the space of the room;
• skillfully hide defects in the ceiling base.

Drywall can be painted and coated with other finishing materials. It is convenient to embed any lighting fixtures into such multi-tiered ceilings.

Stretch ceilings are no less interesting, the main advantage of which is the leveling effect. They form a perfectly flat surface with minimal effort.

Tension structures can be divided into three types depending on their reflective ability:

• Matte. They are considered a classic option, they do not distract attention from the rest of the interior.

• Glossy. A good opportunity to transform a room, fill it with light and visually expand the space.
• Fabric. They have a fantastic appearance, thanks to the embossed surface and structure of the fabric, but they are expensive.

The variety of stretch ceilings allows you to renovate the living room in any style.

The color scheme of the living room is of no small importance. Like any room in the house, the hall should have a harmonious combination of the colors used. This is the place where family members of different ages rest. Colors should be chosen carefully so as not to irritate but to promote relaxation.

A certain role in the choice of colors is played by the style of the room. Minimalism, fashionable today, does not accept defiant colors. It is better to give preference to simple and natural shades of the natural range. The best options for decorating a room will be beige, light gray, milky white, brown shades.

If the interior is decorated in a traditional classic version, brown-gold, beige, turquoise, burgundy, bottle green tones will be appropriate. They will favorably emphasize the luxury of natural furniture, stucco on the walls, high-quality textiles.

Vintage pastel colors are relevant for rustic country, shabby chic and French Provence style, they will gracefully demonstrate the coziness of a country interior or a country house, tune in to a spiritual mood. Light shades visually fill the space with warmth and light. Bright colors will be inappropriate here.

The living room of any home is designed to perform many tasks.Therefore, it uses combined lighting, which takes into account every available functional area.

Ceiling lighting is the main one in the hall. The classic option for him is the installation of a chandelier, the choice of which is varied today. However, modern systems for decorating the ceiling space do not always allow the use of this version of the luminaire.

Tension structures are especially sensitive in this regard. But there is also a solution for them: you can use spotlights or LED strip. The common light is used for receiving guests, holding home celebrations and special occasions.

Local light is no less important for the living room. Small wall sconces, floor lamps, mosaic table lampshades make the room cozy and comfortable and help to set accents in the interior.

The focal point of any living room is a fireplace or TV. Based on the placement of these items, you can furnish the room. The sofa should be comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and in line with the chosen interior style. The size of the product depends on the number of family members and guests who come regularly. Standard furniture consoles are designed for 3-4 people. A corner model or a furniture set with a second sofa is relevant in a spacious living room of a private house.

The coffee table can be the most common or multifunctional folding. The material of the product depends on the style of the room. A stable wooden product is suitable for the classics, a plastic model of an unusual color is relevant for the Art Nouveau style, a glass table will look good in a modern style. If space is limited, it is worth purchasing a side table.

It is wiser to choose storage systems based on the number of items and the design concept. In modern interiors, they increasingly resort to built-in wardrobes. They hold a ton of things and save space.

The decor allows you to decorate the interior of the living room in an interesting way. With its help, you can place accents, add coziness and warmth to the room. If it is not possible to install a real fireplace, you can get by with an electric fireplace with an imitation of live fire. Many examples of biofireplaces look like real wood-burning products, they will perfectly decorate any interior.

The decor of any living space implies the use of accessories, figurines, memorabilia dear to the heart, favorite framed photographs, family heirlooms. For these priceless items, it is better to set aside a separate corner. You can decorate the interior with paintings by placing them on the walls. Their plots depend on the design concept of the room. These can be reproductions of paintings by prominent artists, modern abstract compositions.

The choice of a living room design project largely depends on the size of the room. Architects call the minimum area of ​​15 sq. m, but more comfortable is considered to be a footage of 30 sq. m. Such a space is relevant for the living room of a one-story house and a multi-storey building. The living rooms on the ground floor are considered classics of the genre. Their special bonus is the possibility of access to the terrace and directly into the garden.

There are special requirements for arranging a living room in a two-story house:

• If the front room is located on the second floor, it is necessary to harmoniously arrange the stairs that lead to the living room. It is more convenient for both guests and households to pass from the corridor directly into the hall.
• It is not necessary to overload the room too much, the use of unnecessary pieces of furniture is inappropriate.
• It is more reasonable to design the amenities in the house on the same floor as the living room.
• When planning, you need to take into account all the buildings in the house.

In houses with two floors or more, two-level rooms will look aristocratic. In this case, the question of space zoning does not arise. The first floor can comfortably accommodate a recreation area (sofa set, fireplace, home theater). The second floor will be occupied by a study, a home library, a winter garden or a mini-greenhouse.

A modern living room allows for a combination of several styles. In the room with access to the terrace, the loft style is expressed by the brick wall decoration. A drawing of a 19th century European street, reminiscent of illustrations from Victor Hugo's novels, breaks through the rough stone. The panorama successfully conveys the style of industrialists and manufacturers.

The light sofa of the original form fits into the spirit of modern technology and fashionable hi-tech style. An unusual mobile structure on a metal base resembles the interior item of a space liner rather than a sofa that is familiar in our understanding. The picture is completed by laconic strict floor lamps on chrome-plated legs. An unexpected, concise and complete project.

See the next video for ideas for a living room in your home.