What would you do with this living room?

[cantdecideanything]

Just moved in and having a complete mental block over this living room! The sofa and TV unit are from my old place and are to be replaced. We originally wanted a big slouchy orange sofa along the wall, and a smaller dark blue one in the window but now I just don’t know! There’s a toddler in the house so trying to avoid super light coloured sofas… We’ll be changing the curtains at some point too, but not too keen on repainting the blue walls for a while.

Photos attached with sofas we were considering before said mental block!

You could do a lot with that room, it has lovely proportions. What is your style?

to be honest repainting it would be the first thing I would do rather than buy new sofas. Is there a reason you don’t want to? I’d put in a picture rail and do a bold colour beneath that (so above and below the dado are the same colour). Change curtains, nice rug. Could be lovely.

Agree with pp. Repaint. I would do white witg lovely colourful furniture as you are planning. If you would have grey or something sofa I eould say pistacho on walls, but it sounds like you might want modern bohemian and white will allow you to go fun around it

Glorious room.

What's your style? Colourful? Boho? Maximalist? Retro? Hinch grey? Greige?

Do you have any art that you love? Colours? Patterns?

I don't like the blue sofa at all btw, but styled right it could be OK, but I think there's better out there!

A modern boho type style is definitely what we’re after. Plants, cream, splashes of orange and lots of plants! I’ve got a painter coming round this week for a quote for some other work in the house so I’ll add this to the list. 🤣

Two small sofas facing each other, either side if the fireplace. Having a sofa against the wall makes the room look like a corridor.

Top notch style.
White and build around it. Sofas look nice. It will be freat ligh, fun colourful place!

Re plants, i had very nice curtain pole put close under celing on one wall for plant hanging and easy access. Might work on yohr shorter wall and saves floor space

You could literally have that awful blue painted in a morning and not need to pay anyone to do it. I love the orange and blue sofas btw. I agree with the pp who said move the dado rail up and make it a picture rail. Could you put shelving in the alcoves for books and ornaments etc?

I think the walls look out of proportion, so would add a picture rail back and paint darker above the dado and lighter below it. It looks like there is a great view and you get the evening light? So maximise that with a cosy chair in the window or a window seat, but don't block it completely with a sofa.

I really like the orange sofas. A pair of those either side of the fireplace or at 90 degrees to each other could work well, depending on where/how you want the TV. It would look good to have matching shelving/ cupboards each side of the fireplace and perhaps build the tv into that.

I found that drawing a scale plan on grid paper, then cutting out scaled furniture that could be moved around on the plan was a helpful way to visualise the space in a room.

Another one for repainting! I would just do the area beneath the rail, in a much warmer colour, which would tie the beige carpet and the brown curtains together. If you did this, you could get away with keeping your brown sofa for a while, to give you some time to experience the light in the room. It would be a really easy job, you wouldn’t need a ladder ( though a low stool makes painting near the ground much easy to control.) As you like orange, look at ochre and terracotta colours .

presumably you have some pictures as it’s quite an expanse of blank wall at the moment? I wouldn’t have a rug , it will ride up all the time on that carpet, which is not only annoying but can be a real ‘trip hazard’ ( to borrow from the electrician’s sign while he was working).

A couple of small tables with table lamps in the corners will make the room feel much nicer in the evening. You can get cheap ones on eBay which you can dress with table cloths in warm colours. I would take the lovely fireplace as your starting point, and work around that.

That blue paint on the bottom of the wall is awful.

Get two sofas the same colour.

Where does the TV go if you do this? We have a similar proportioned sitting room (though infuriatingly the chimney breast isn’t quite central so we have one small alcove at the door side and one bigger on at the window side) and I really wanted two sofas facing each other. But we couldn’t make it work with the TV too (and the windows are actually French windows which was another factor).

Or do you just not have a TV? We don’t have another room that we could use as a TV room/snug atm - eventually we could repurpose the playroom for that I suppose.

@WolfFoxHare good point. I think you could put a small TV opposite the fireplace wall.

Thanks all, loving the ideas! I think moving the dado rail to picture rail height and repainting to a warm neutral stone/beige is what we’re thinking! Then we can go for our original choice of big slouchy orange sofas! I’m not sure why I was so set on keeping the blue when it’s an easy thing to change. I struggle to envision things and could only really see the room the way the previous owners had it arranged, but we’re going to try and see where else we can place the TV then work around that for sofa configuration!

I’ve super quickly moved things around… I think this configuration might work! One of the issues with the sofas we loved was that they’re fairly hefty depth wise but if they were at opposite sides of the room like this, it’s not an issue!

Love the sofas! I would definitely re paint asap and I would look at building in some storage/shelves into the alcove where the tv is. Can house the tv and books plants etc above and enclosed storage underneath. Move the rail up, it looks out of proportion. Neutral colour above and below. Orange and blue sofas and then rugs/throws cushions in patterns that pick out the colours and creams/neutrals.

If you remove the dado rail you will have to get the room skimmed to hide the marks. I would just keep it and add in a picture rail. Also, is your TV now Infront of a radiator? TVs don't like that. You might want to stick some insulation to the back of the TV to protect it from the heat. Maybe that reflective stuff you can but to put down the back of radiators.

Are you in Scotland? Looks like a Glasgow tenament, they can have lovely proportions.

The dado rail is probably a 1970s addition, you can't just move it because it's the wrong shape for a picture rail. Are there original picture rails anywhere in the flat? If there is you should be able to get a match, I got an exact match for our house here.

Personally I would remove the dado rail and paint the walls one colour. I think dado rails were outdated, I put them in during the 1980s but my current house does not have any. I also imagine picture rails in 1930s houses like the one I grew up in, great for hanging clothes when doing the ironing but not used to hang pictures! Again, in a more modern house they look a bit odd to me.

But I am a minimalist and like clean lines and no clutter which I appreciate is not everyone’s taste.

It’s a biggish, bright, high-ceilinged room that could take almost any paint colour. Personally, I’d go bold, but your call, obviously. I would move the radiator if you plan to have the TV on the wall opposite the fireplace, and would buy or build in a shelving unit to include the TV in, so it’s not just sitting there, as TVs are pretty unattractive. Does the fireplace work, and are you going to use it? The other thing you need to think about is the lighting.

You could possibly dye those curtains rather by new ones. Curtains are hideously expensive when the windows are as big as that and they look lovely quality!

We’ve switched the radiator behind the TV off for now, we might look into wall mounting it there but we’ll see. The dado rail looks like it was a DIY job by the previous owners as some parts don’t match up at the corners etc.

Looks better already with the sofa on the other wall.
i might consider a corner sofa where yours I now, and an armchair in the window.

@JaninaDuszejko yes, we’re in Scotland! Semi-detached in Fife, has some lovely period features but I’m finding the huge rooms a challenge to fill! 🤣

The fire is functional so we’ll be keeping it and hopefully installing a log burner at some point! I’ve just pushed the button on the big slouchy orange sofas, so we’ll work around those and have a look for some inspiration for the walls.

Is the room 1st/2nd floor?
If it's ground floor then I'd plan to change the window to French doors looks like a lovely view out there.