Skip to main content
EN AUEnglish

6 ideas for a modern living room

Modern, we say? Call it what you want – contemporary, updated, here and now – but it boils down to adding a new, refreshing feeling to the room. Here are some of our best show-don’t-tell ideas for how to decorate a modern living room.

A colourful living room where a wall-covering BESTÅ unit creates a chequered pattern of white fronts and display storage.
A colourful living room where a wall-covering BESTÅ unit creates a chequered pattern of white fronts and display storage.

Give your room a foreign accent

See the blues? Just subtle hints one by one, but put together enough to catch attention and mark a conscious theme. It helps the rest of this living room, a combination of vintage and contemporary furniture, to create a textured, minimalist look. Put together, the room feels both modern and timeless.

Shop side tables
A LÖVBACKEN side table placed in front of a light-grey ÄPPLARYD two-seat sofa in a living room with a white colour scheme.
Shop side tables

Same function, different mood

Seek ways to update traditional functions in a new way. Mood lighting is one of those areas where technology like LED offers simple, safe solutions – not seldom with a stylish modern twist.

Shop table light decorations
A dim room with a lit black BJÖRKSPIREA tube-shaped LED light decoration, its light reflected in a nearby LINDBYN mirror.
Shop table light decorations

Go for classic contrasts

Paint one wall black to set the scene. Then let surfaces of white and black contrast and complement each other throughout the space and enjoy the end result – a dramatic, interactive, lingering look.

Shop lounge chairs
A black FRÖSET easy chair by three stacks of different-sized white SOCKERBIT boxes with lid against a black chalkboard wall.
Shop lounge chairs

Let storage meet sculpture

Wall-mounted EKET cabinets are a perfect tool for combining clutter-minimising storage with expression-maximising displays. Go ahead, show the real you!

Shop EKET cube shelves & cabinets
A bright room where some 20 EKET cabinets in various colours and filled with display storage asymmetrically frame a window.
Shop EKET cube shelves & cabinets

Make room for your centrepiece

What’s the one piece of art you want maximum focus on? Highlight it by dedicating a whole wall. Want it to stand out more? Let the colours and composition be a key to the rest of the room. Mirroring the colours of the painting neatly ties the room together.

Shop picture & photo frames
A colourful yet sparsely furnished living room with a single art piece in a black LOMVIKEN frame on a light-blue wall.
Shop picture & photo frames

Play with shapes and colours

Placing starkly different shades and lines together can often create a magnetic effect. Like here, where blue and neutral, square and curving clash mildly to form a space that’s clearly the place to be.

Shop KALLAX shelving units
A disco-ball-equipped space with KALLAX shelving units filled with leisure items, set against a wall with a big blue circle.
Shop KALLAX shelving units