Narrow Living Room: Design and Decorating Tips

When you decorate rooms in an older home, frequently you will find that you have a much smaller sized room to work with than you would find in a newer house. Depending on the style of home you may end up with oddly shaped rooms as well as small spaces. Many older homes were designed with long and narrow living rooms, and they can be a challenge to make into comfortable living spaces. Here a few ideas to keep in mind when you are faced with this type of room challenge.

All text copyright Relica. Photo from Flikr - "Living Room" courtesy of pdstahl.

1. If your home has a living room that looks more like a bowling lane than a living room, then you may want to use your room layout to reshape the room. You can easily do this by dividing the space into several smaller living spaces. You define these rooms within a room by using a piece of furniture, a lamp or an area rug as an anchor for the furniture grouping. In your living room you could place two separate conversational areas. One could be more intimate and formal, while the other could be more comfortable and may even include a stereo system or TV.

2. Use mirrors to change the visual shape of your room. By lining an entire wall with mirrors, you essentially reflect the room back into itself visually doubling the width of the long, narrow room. In older homes the front door typically opens into the living room with no foyer; if the entry is small, use a wall mirror to make it feel deeper or wider.

All text copyright Relica. Photo from Flikr - "Peggy's Zen living room makeover, Seattle, Washington, USA" courtesy of Wonderlane.

3. Neutral colors can create a blank canvas, and then you can introduce a few accent colors in your space. By grouping the accent colors, you create shapes within the space that help break up the long and narrow feel of the room. Use wall décor to define the space by tying into your decorative scheme: For example, iron wall art for a Mediterranean look or music wall hangings above a piano that divides the space.

4. Painting can make a big difference in how a room appears visually. By adding a dark stripe around the top edge of the ceiling or just under the crown molding, you will create the effect of a wider room. Or camouflage with wallpaper: You can add wallpaper with a horizontal strip or pattern to widen narrow walls.

5. Use the whole room, and do not feel like you need to plaster all of the furniture around the perimeter of the room. If you bring your seating area into the center of the room, it will actually give the room a little more width. When you bring furniture into the center of the room, you can also change the orientation of the furniture, and instead of orienting it to the wall, you can set up an area rug in any direction that you please and group the furniture around it.

With these decorating basics you can take any narrow space and give it a comfortable balance that will make the room feel warm and inviting.

All text copyright Relica. Photo from Flikr - "living room.JPG" courtesy of Lyndi&Jason.