Simple living room designs

Give a traditional living room a surprise new element with an eye-popping paint colour. The pale grey and off-white colour scheme lacked punch before, but painting the fire surround in a bold shade of yellow helps to create an eye-catching focal point. Carry the colour through on one or two key pieces, such as an accent side table, cushion and patterned rug.

Fireplace paint
Farrow & Ball

Update a neutral country living room with a fresh botanical scheme. Use a fern-print fabric as your starting point, teamed with leafy fabrics and accessories for a cohesive look. Keep your colour palette relaxed and rustic, in shades of fern green, duck-egg blue and warm beige, teamed with mismatched furniture in warm, weathered woods. Paint the walls in a tonal duck-egg shade, adding a row of foliage-inspired pictures above the sofa as a finishing touch.

Footstool fabric
Vanessa Arbuthnott
Fern prints

Stuck in a rut with your neutral living room? Then be bold with a boho-inspired colour treatment, guaranteed to lift the spirits. Begin by building your look around your key neutral elements, such as pale walls, a cream sofa and neutral wooden flooring. Start small with a boldly-patterned rug and a row of cushions in mix-and-match colours. Then add to your scheme bit by bit with contrasting colours and patterns – a lamp here, a couple of pictures there – until you're happy with the effect.

Rug
Heal's

Make over a country living room with a fresh, coastal-inspired scheme. Start with a wood-effect wallpaper to create the look of weathered panelling, then keep the rest of the décor calm and casual with a relaxed palette of creams, greys and pale blues to create a beachy vibe. Team with painted wood furniture, cotton-linen uphostery and bleached flooring. Finally, display beachcomber finds, such as pebbes, shells and sea-glass bottles for a holiday feel.

Wallpaper
Clarke & Clarke

Refresh a tired living room with a cheery new colour treatment. Go for a bright contrast that will energise the space, such as this turquoise and yellow combination, or experiment with pairing colours like orange and grey, or pink and cobalt blue. Use large blocks of colour to give the scheme more impact, such as on a sofa and armchair, against a backdrop of a plain white wall to stop the colour overwhelming the room. Finally, create a mini gallery of wall art with picture frames painted in co-ordinated shades.

Sofa
Made.com

Enliven a cool living room by introducing a warm accent colour – such as this rich, rusty red – to use around the room on soft furnishings and accessories. These colour block prints are a great way of bringing more colour in. Try positioning a pair above a sofa or a large piece of furniture, to help draw the eye and tie the scheme together.

Prints
Allposters.co.uk
Coffee table

Give a neutral scheme a boost with a simple, block print-patterned wallpaper. Pick a uniform pattern in a neutral greige, mid-grey or taupe colourway against a paler background, then carry on your theme with a nod to the pattern on cushions and soft furnishings. Mix up your scheme by bringing in a couple more small-scale patterns here and there, followed by touches of a sharp accent colour such as lime green or chartreuse yellow.

Wallpaper
Romo

Update an uninspiring living room with a Fifties-style makeover. Start with a statement wallpaper in a signature mid-century print, such as this stylish leaf and flower design in muted mushroom and yellow. Introduce accents of yellow around the room on cushions, rugs, vases and ceramics, tempered with the mushroom shade as your neutral background colour. Carry on the Fifties theme with mid-century accent furniture, featuring streamlined shapes, tapered legs and lots of blonde Scandi-style woods.

Wallpaper
Harlequin

Give a plain living room a focal point with a gallery-style arrangement of family photographs. Keep to pictures and frames that echo your colour scheme for a co-ordinated look, such as these black and white photographs in simple off-white frames. Create this diamond-shaped arrangement by starting with a column of frames in the centre, then adding shorter columns either side as you go. Using frames in a variety of sizes will give a relaxed look.

Armchair
Sofa.com