Published: April 19, 2022 I HOME DECORATING
Need cozy living room ideas? We’ll show you how to make your living room feel cozy including what furniture, colors, and accessories make a cozy and inviting space.
A cozy living room is a comfortable, warm, and relaxed space. The cozier your living room is, the more you feel relaxed in it. It’s something most people aim for when they decorate or buy furniture pieces for their living room.
The good news is that making your living room homey isn’t that difficult. In fact, just making small changes to your space like changing the pillows, replacing the curtains, or adding an accent chair can make a huge difference.
In this post, we’ll show you 18 cozy living room ideas that can help you achieve a cozy space that you’ll love to spend time in.
1. Add noticeable wood details and warm elements
Wood elements such as wood furniture, fireplace logs, mantel, décor, and ceiling beams evoke an undeniably warm feeling in any room. Wood furniture also softens the look of concrete walls and floors, which reduces the air of coldness (indifference/stiffness). It also adds a natural feel that enhances the warmth of your space. Thus, incorporating wood furniture can make your living room cozy. Wood options include distressed wood as seen in most rustic or farmhouse style spaces or a smooth wooden finish in modern or coastal living rooms.
2. Consider these wall colors to make a living room cozy
There are many options when it comes to colors. Painting a wall with a darker color makes a large space look more intimate. Grays, dark brown, dark green, bluish gray, dark teal, or a charcoal color can instantly change the mood of a space.
Generally, neutral colors such as tan, rust, beige, gray, and brown can exude warmth in a space and make it feel homey. Lighter colors can make your space feel more airy and fresh.
Now, let’s look at what furniture can make a living room cozy.
3. Choose the right sofa!
One of the worst mistakes you can do with your living room is choosing the wrong sofa. Because the sofa is one of the focal points in a living room and where you spend most, or all, of your time in, you need to focus on quality and comfort when choosing a sofa. Also, don’t forget to do a sofa “sit test” in the store to get a feel if it has the right softness and sturdiness for you.
4. Create an inviting seating area
The arrangement of the sofa and chairs can make a big difference to your living room. Try arranging four accent chairs facing each other to form a circle instead of facing the wall or TV, to create an atmosphere for lovely conversations.
“I love a good ‘4 chair’ room. The coziest convos and moments happen when you’re all facing each other, all attention on the circle,” according to Lauren Liess.
5. Consider the feel of other furniture pieces
It’s not just the sofa that you need to think about in terms of the coziness of your living room but also the other furniture such as side tables and coffee tables. Do they make the room look softer and easier on the eyes? There are a lot of furniture that can make you feel afraid to use or even touch them because they look so delicate and fragile. You don’t want those in your living room!
A nice furniture example is this tufted coffee table and white side table, chosen by Tamara from Bridgeway Designs, that really completes this cozy farmhouse living room.
6. Add a footrest for a more comfortable seating
After a day’s work, a nice seat with a footrest is perfect for lounging. Putting your feet up actually helps with blood circulation, because it takes away the pressure of gravity on your feet and brings back oxygen to your heart. Also, it can prevent varicose veins from prolonged sitting or standing, according to Healthline. So, get a comfortable footrest in your living room and you’ll nudge the coziness meter up one notch!
7. Go for a sectional sofa for large spaces
Including a sectional seating in a large space can make it less intimidating. Also, a sectional sofa can be broken down into different “sections” so you can rearrange them with the rest of the furniture every now and then to suit your lifestyle or just to make a change to the layout of your living room.
8. Put in some comfy bean chairs
These adorable bean chairs make a living room look more casual and are great for having long conversations or to sinking in for movie marathons! Another cozy living room idea!
9. Bring out the ottomans
Use ottomans to add more inviting and casual seating to your living room. Also, ottomans can be easily tucked away under console tables to free up space anytime.
The rest of this article suggests accessories to include in your living room to make it cozier, plus more cozy living room ideas!
10. Include memorabilia and photos
As mentioned by O’Hara Interiors, “When you include personal items with decorative and mix in some regionally-inspired novelties – you create a truly inspired and personal display space!”
Creating a cozy living room also includes focusing on the little details in your space. For example, instead of just placing decorative items in the shelf, mix it up with memorabilia and photos that will give a sense of nostalgia and can make the space feel more personal and close to your heart (and not just a place where you eat, sleep, watch TV, or do your work). Basically, your living room has to connect with you, too!
To showcase photos, try making a wall gallery. To do this, put photos in same-sized black or white frames and then hang them in sets of four or six. Check out the beautiful photo gallery below.
11. Add an area rug
Concrete and linoleum floors are practical and easy to clean yet can feel stiff and cold. To fix this, add an area rug to your living room floor. Rugs not only are used to keep your feet warm during winter days/ cold weather or for aesthetic purposes but can also enhance the feeling of unwinding and relaxation. Imagine, resting your feet on a soft rug versus a concrete floor! Soft wool, cotton, chenille, and faux fur are some of the comfy rugs you can choose from.
Credit: Westwing Deutschland
12. Go for printed fabrics
A mix of printed fabrics draws the right attention to your space by providing variety. I’m talking about curtains, pillows, sofa, and chairs. Don’t limit yourself to just one pattern. It doesn’t need to be matchy-matchy all the time.
To make the patterns cohesive, you can pick two or more patterns with one or two different colors so that they’ll still look good together. For example, in this classic living room by interior designer Nichole Blough, the main colors are rust and green as seen in the floral and abstract patterns in the curtains and throw pillows. To complement these colors, a lamp, a coffee table tray, and tulips in rust colors were added as well.
The sofa below has pillows in different patterns but all in soft and neutral colors that beautifully blend together.
13. Add texture and layers
There are a lot of ways to bring in layers to your living room. First is to place pillows and a throw with a soft fabric on your sofa. Pillows make a sofa look comfy and inviting. You can also layer up rugs on the floor, photos and books on the coffee table, and art above the mantel.
For adding texture, the trick is to choose items that have different levels of roughness. Consider accessories such as clay pots, wicker baskets, a wreath, candle sticks, carved lamps, crystals or rocks, etc. A brick wall would also be great if your room already has one.
Which accessories above will you choose for your living room?
14. Let natural light in
Sunlight is an instant mood changer. It cheers you up and makes your room look friendlier. Having the curtains or blinds closed all the time can make a room stuffy and create a gloomy ambiance that you don’t want to have in your home!
15. Opt for softer lighting at night
There’s always room for more lighting! While natural lighting is great, having lamps or mood lighting, especially at night, softens a room better than fluorescent lights. Lamps and sconces are the perfect living room lighting options to make it feel cozier, especially for large spaces.
16. Add plants and flowers
A cozy living room wouldn’t be complete without fresh plants and flowers. Plants can make any room look natural and alive. Just adding a potted plant can improve the aesthetic of your living room as well as your mood.
In addition, plants have scientific benefits, according to Healthline. Real indoor plants help reduce stress, help speed up healing or recovery, and can improve the quality of the air. Plants are also therapeutic for the eyes, according to Village Eye Care Clinic in Chicago, because they can filter pollutants out of the air naturally.
Village Eye Care Clinic suggests plants such as crawling lines, bamboo palms, lilies, or philodendrons. In addition, lavenders, lilies, and snake plants can benefit your mental health like decreases your anxiety as per Healthline.
Note: If you have asthma or allergies, consult your doctor first before bringing plants inside your home.
17. Try pops of pretty pastel colors for other living room décor
Use cool and soft pastel colors such as combinations of light blue, light pink, and light green for living room accessories to make your space feel heavenly and calming.
18. Don’t forget your living room corners too!
The corners of your living room have a lot of potential and shouldn’t be ignored. Corners can be converted into a cozy reading nook or an area in which to place a large plant
Hope you picked up lots of great ideas how to make your living room cozy.
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