How to design a relaxing living room
Would you like a living room where you can disconnect from the daily grind and leave your responsibilities behind? Who wouldn't! Here we'll explain how to create your own Zen space to disconnect, rest and relax at home. Pamper yourself and find some respite with a relaxing living room.
When was the last time you sat in a chair or on your sofa at home and felt truly at peace? Your pulse slowing, your muscles becoming less tense, your breathing deeper and your mind simply going blank for a moment... That feeling is amazing, isn't it?
Whether you spend most of your day out of your home or you work and live at home, it's important that we designate an area—no matter how small—to relaxation and to ourselves. Get inspired and follow these four steps to recreate this living room to discover how to make comfort and serenity an integral part of your home.
1. Pay attention to your wall colour
Opt for a simple visual effect. If you are able to do so, paint all of your walls the same colour—we recommend an earthy colour, such as this rosy tone, for a visually relaxing effect. You can also choose other tones, always ensuring that they are muted, such as pastels. Then, you can add one or two neutral, contrasting colours, as we've done here in white. Lastly, a natural environment with plants and accessories made from sustainable materials will give your living room warmth.
2. Clear up clutter and keep it tidy
In order to relax completely, there's nothing like the space around us being clean and tidy (even just a little). In order to achieve a relaxing atmosphere, try using storage solutions that, besides making your wall colour stand out, help to keep your living room nice and tidy.
Here's a trick: in order to achieve a more harmonious appearance, we recommend that you choose similarly coloured items and that you place your books with their spines inwards. Oh, and if you can, try to hide away any cables or electronics; remember, our goal is to disconnect.
Try using our boxes and baskets to store everything you'd like to have at hand, yet out of sight. If you'd like something different to boxes or you need to separate your items into different compartments, a mini chest is an affordable and practical solution. They're great for storing small items to always have them at hand without the clutter.
You can use your living room walls to create different levels of storage with wall shelves. That way, you'll have much more space to store items and you'll also have more options to decorate your living room. For example, we've placed some plants to give the walls that touch of green we love so much, giving the impression that you're surrounded by nature.
If you think about it, organising is also a way to decorate. We recommend that you group together some of your favourite items to make a statement and serve as decoration at the same time. A tried-and-tested solution is using an open cabinet, as we've done here with an EKET cabinet.
3. Add plants to create a relaxing atmosphere
We've said it before and we'll say it again: there's nothing like surrounding ourselves with nature to relieve stress. In addition to cleaning the air and producing oxygen, indoor plants bring colour, texture and depth to spaces. You can dress up a window by hanging potted plants above, placing potted plants below and hanging some natural strings across. Flowering plants are beautiful, but here we opted for natural elements that showcase the colour green, although this depends on your own preferences and whether or not you have green fingers. Here's a tip: look after the aromas that you breathe in your relaxing living room. To do this, some scented dried flowers as pot pourri might just do the trick.
By the way, did you notice the baskets we've used? They're made from 100% sustainable materials and best of all, they're really practical for storing objects and giving the space a natural touch.
4. Accessories for your relaxing living room
Little by little, all of the parts come together to create a "relaxing ecosystem". Now that we've organised our living room, it's time to give it the finishing touches using accessories to round off our relaxing corner.
As you've surely noticed, there's no need to break the bank in order to transform a space or make it stand out. A touch of paint, some boxes and some furniture or shelves, something green to cheer it up, decorating using a few of our favourite items… It's all rather simple, isn't it? Lastly, we'll have a look at the power of textiles to create your own tranquil oasis.
The first premise in achieving a relaxing space is that it be as comfortable as possible. And what better than cushions to do just that? Don't worry about having several different sizes and varieties—you can even use them to sit on the floor if you'd like. Using blankets is also a nice way to wrap yourself up and stay put if you feel a chill coming on, which is why we always recommend that you have one at hand. What's more, remember that you can always add a nice rug to give you that extra touch of warmth.
If you need a place to store all your cushions, especially the larger ones for sitting on the floor, a rack might be just what you need. We've added a few loops to these cushions in order to hang them, thus helping to keep them clean and out of the way. You can hang a few individual hooks or a board with several.
And while we're on the subject of decorations, it's not a bad idea to have an area or a tray with some nibbles, a nice warm drink (perhaps a tasty coffee or organic tea) or some refreshing water in a bottle or pitcher. Everything you could want so there'll be no need to get up and move about your home.
These are some finishing touches; however, the more you use the space, the more you'll discover other things that you'd like to have at hand to help you relax… the smell of incense, some background music, a new book nearby etc.
Get inspired with these ideas to freshen up your home and enjoy each and every corner.
We love it when customers use our products in a creative way. Why not try to do something new with them yourself? But do remember, any modifications or changes that you make to IKEA products will prevent them from being resold or used for their original purpose, thus invalidating IKEA product warranties and your right to return them.
