5 Small Living Room Decorating Tips

Having a small living room doesn’t mean that your space to relax has to be a cluttered, disorganized mess. Make the most of the space you have by following a few tips for inexpensive, space-maximizing living room decorating.

Tip #1- Clean Up

Start with a “clean slate.” Move everything out of your living room and clean the room and living room furniture thoroughly. Inexpensive homemade cleaners made with distilled white vinegar and baking soda work just as well as the expensive harsh chemical mixtures. Spray vinegar on hard surfaces such as the coffee table, entertainment cabinets and wooden floors and just wipe away with a rag or mop. Do not use on stone and marble surfaces. Shake baking powder over carpet, rugs, drapes and upholstery and use a scrub brush to work the soda into any old stains. Allow it to soak for a few hours and then vacuum it away for clean, fresh fibers.

Tip #2- Put Back the Bare Essentials

When you’re moving your living room furniture and items back into the room, consider how frequently you use the items. Donate, sell or throw out items of no sentimental value that you don’t frequently use, including pieces of furniture. You might store items of sentimental value in a closet or a storage facility or use them as part of your living room decorating design. (Too many trinkets can be a distraction, though.)

Tip #3 – Small Living Room Furniture

A small space means you need to fill it with small space furniture. If you can afford to buy new or used furniture, look for pieces like:

• end tables (instead of coffee tables)
• loveseat (don’t put a huge sofa in a small living room if you can help it)
• small recliner
• tall, thin shelving units (which don’t take up a lot of room width and maximize unused floor-to-ceiling space)

Tip #4- Making the Most of What You Have or What You Find

If you can afford to buy new coordinating furniture, go ahead. Most likely, though, you don’t want to spend the money. So scour rummage sales and online auctions instead for bargain deals–or you can work with what you have.

To coordinate a random assortment of furniture, buy large amounts of attractive fabric on sale. Depending on your sewing skills, you can use this fabric to create upholstery covers, coordinating pillows, and cover tables with fabric of the matching design under glass tops to keep spills and dust away. Even if you don’t have sewing skills, you can drape the fabric over upholstery like a throw and staple the fabric underneath table tops.

Tip #5 – Finishing Touches

Even if you coordinate the living room furniture, a small living room still needs the finishing touches that can turn the space from bland to bold. If you can’t paint the walls in your apartment, hang works of art, photographs or even framed swatches of your room’s theme fabric to effectively accent the room. Put up a few trinkets of sentimental value and framed photographs around the room.

A small living room doesn’t have to be cluttered and crowded. With a few simple small space living room decorating tips, you can maximize space without spending a lot of cash.