Living Room Decor Ideas representative your status. Every element of your living room represents your financial, social, professional and civil status The living room of your house is rightly known as the representative of your status. Indeed, every element of your living room represents your financial, social, professional and civil status in every single way. As a matter of fact, every visitor to the house gets draws conclusions about your overall personality based on the looks of your living room.

Hence, it’s imperative that we keep our living rooms neat and tidy, odorless and at the same time, have a stunning look.

These statements might get you worried. Obviously, you might imagine that decorating a living room costs a small fortune and most likely, would burn a hole in your purse or pockets. I can assure you that decorating a living room doesn’t cost much or can even be done almost free. All it takes is your efforts and some creativity.

Understandably, giving a facelift to your living room isn’t really a one-off process. In fact, most households change the looks of their living room to match seasons and especially in India, to reflect the myriad festivals of this land.

If this sounds interesting and you’d love to give that stunning look to the living room, continue reading. In this article, I will be discussing the eight time-tested and proven ways to decorate your living room free or at minimal expense.

Preparing Your Living Room

Preparing your living room before giving it a stunning look is the most basic and important part of the effort. It could prove time consuming and labor intensive. However, I can assure you that all efforts towards this end would prove worthwhile.

Begin preparing your living room by dusting the ceiling and walls as well as deep cleaning the room. Eliminate cobwebs, fill-up any cracks and cavities or even holes in the wall with putty or other material that’re easily available at hardware stores.

Pay extra attention to the windows. These are perhaps the most neglected part of any house. Grills on the window are often clogged with dust while glass panes get greasy and dull over a period of time, unless cleaned frequently.

Remove all furniture from the living room temporarily so that you can get a feel of its real dimensions. You can use this time to get members of your household to clean the furniture and where possible, polish or apply varnish.

Once you’ve moved the furniture, open all the windows and check the natural lighting of the living room. This element will prove very handy when deciding on lighting for the living room to highlight the amazing décor you would give.

And finally, clean all electrical boards and fittings because these tend to gather dust or get yellowed over a span of time. You can’t simply decorate your living room with ugly looking electric wires, cables and switchboards.

Living Room Décor Ideas: 8 Tips

Once the room is fully ready and prepared, you can begin decorating it in the style that suits your tastes, social and financial status and overall personality of your household. There’re as many as eight different styles that you can give your living room. In this article, I will discuss all of them for you to pick and decide.

Here we go.

1.      Minimalist Décor

The minimalist décor is the best, in my humble opinion. It consists of minimal furniture and lots of open spaces in the living room. The minimalist décor also ensures clean lines that give it the stunning and very hygienic look.

Usually, the minimalist décor consists of one or two simple colors. You can dress your sofa and chairs in the living room in minimalist fashion, using appropriate sofa covers. Add floor mats of matching colors to give it that cozy feel.

Use stuff such as simple wall hangings and hydroponic indoor plants to add some color to the minimalist look of your living room. You can use all the existing stuff, provided they’re clean and sparkling. The minimalist décor can be done free or with minimal expense to your pocket.

2.      Ethnic Décor

This is my favorite décor among all others. As the term signifies, ethnic décor implies decorating the living room with ethnic stuff, usually from one region of India or a single part of the world.

Personally, my house is decorated in the Far Eastern style with wall hangings and lighting reflecting those from Japan, North and South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan ROC to name a few places. This was done by buying handicrafts such as wall hangings during my visits to these exotic countries.

You can give a similar ethnic décor by focusing on how a traditional living room in an Indian state would appear. For example, you could choose decorations that reflect the spirit of Maharashtra or Rajasthan or anywhere else and display them on walls, windows and floors.

3.      Coastal Décor

If you’re fond of the sea and beaches or live in coastal parts of this vast country, you might love this décor. Basically, coastal décor means decorating the living room with stuff that syncs with the hot and humid climate of coastal regions.

This includes light color curtains and sofa covers with relatively milder lighting. Usually, coastal décor also means placing wall hangings that depict coastal life such as those with boat drawings or scenes of fishing and other watersports.

Furthermore, you could use handicrafts made of seashells as wall hangings. There’re also decorative fishing nets and other such stuff available online that could give the living room an amazing coastal décor.

Look for ethnic lamps that’re usually used across coastal India. These are different since they come with a larger and stronger protector for the lamps to protect them from sea breeze. There’s a huge selection of such lamps available online for decorating your living room.

4.      Modern Décor

The modern décor is perhaps the simplest among all others. That’s because it doesn’t really adhere to a single style or fashion. Nowadays, all sofas, chairs and other furniture items we get conform to the modern décor.

Furthermore, you can enhance this modern décor by adding wall hangings, paintings and artefacts that’re contemporary to our era and hence, available cheap online as well as offline. Modern décor is easy to turnaround since items are generally inexpensive and you can easily put away old ones and add newer, modern ones from time to time.

Lighting in modern décor is usually focused and consists of installing highlight lamps that focus on various elements of your décor. This décor might cost you a bit at the start but over the years, this will level out and the expense would prove worthwhile.

5.      Bohemian Décor

Maybe you’re new to the term Bohemian décor. I will therefore, explain in a few words. The term Bohemian is used to signify a free-spirited person, especially those who are lively, gregarious and often extroverts. If you qualify as Bohemian, try this décor since it’s fun and lively and would aptly match your personality.

Like the Bohemian spirit, the eponymous décor is also lively. It consists of bright colors and patterns for curtains, sofa covers, wall hangings, table mats and other such stuff. The lighting is also variable, meaning you can switch from basic and functional lighting to more colorful one with focus lamps, whenever needed.

This décor usually suits the young and those who feel young at heart. The best part of Bohemian décor is that you can use almost everything under the Sun to decorate the living room.

6.      Rustic Décor

The rustic décor can give your living room a superb feel of a small village at very minimal cost. This décor reflects the living rooms in villages of India and hence consists of stuff that’s available easily and cheap or even free.

For a rustic feel to your living room, use a Charpoy instead of a modern-day sofa or couch. You can decorate the Charpoy with blankets or covers with Indian village designs available from Khadi showrooms, among others.

Use other things that’re typical of an Indian village such as kerosene or oil lanterns, calendars with bright photos and vernacular print, pictures of deities, rustic benches made of wood planks nailed together and simple wooden chairs with no frills.

The lighting for rustic décor is usually dim and mild when hosting guests. The living room should give the overall feel of an Indian village. You can also hang ropes and other farm stuff on walls for that added look and feel.

7.      Home-Office Décor

The home-office décor has been prevalent in India and other parts of the world for living rooms since several years. However, this décor for living rooms got a fillip during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 when an increasing number of persons worldwide began working from home and had to host contacts and business visitors at their living room.

The home-office décor for living room is exactly what the term states: a blend of both, a normal living room of a household and a modern, chic office that’s bears a professional look. You might have guessed it right. A modern home-office décor for the living room consists of a desk with computer or laptop, printer or other such gadgets.

It has a movable wooden partition that can be used while hosting business contacts and giving the area an office-like ambience. At other times, you can fold this partition to bring back the modern living room look and feel.

Wall decorations in such living rooms usually reflect modern tastes such as abstract art paintings and colorful but simple wall hangings. Lighting is modest as at offices and usually a blend of sunlight and electric lamps during the day.

8.      Abstract Décor

And finally, the abstract décor. For those uninitiated, the abstract décor is somewhat like abstract art. It consists of lots of colorful decorative items within the living room. Broadly speaking, these colors and shades are loud and gaudy and patterns are large and abstract.

In such cases, you can use sofa covers, seat covers and floormats that’re very brightly colored.  You need not adhere to a single style here or a single shade or color. You’re free to choose colors at your will. Also, choose wall hangings and artefacts that’re very colorful and large.

Take care to see that large artefacts don’t deny moving space in the living room.  Lighting in these kinds of living rooms is very bright and usually consists of more than one source such as florescent tubes and bulbs because the bright colors and large patterns need sufficient illumination to be seen prominently. Use this décor if you’re comfortable with loud and gaudy colors and patterns.

Living Room Decor Ideas are mportant and you can use any of these eight styles to decorate or give a facelift to your living room. As you can see, some of these styles can be done free while others will cost minimal. These are simple and easy tips and you can easily work on them with some help from family members.

Remember, decorating a living room isn’t a one-off task. It needs constant upkeep if needed, some basic expenses. However, these efforts can pay rich dividends since the living room can create the desirable impact on your guests about your personality and social, economic status, among others.

Never overdo any décor since that can prove counterproductive. Instead, use only as much stuff as is needed and doesn’t cause clutter. Decorating is easy but maintaining can prove difficult.