Narrow Living Room Decorating Ideas

Often times older homes offer challenges with oddly shaped living spaces, and one of the more common challenges is dealing with a long, narrow living room. It is hard to make this shape space work as an intimate, conversational grouping, and it is difficult to give it an inviting destination feel. The natural movement of the space encourages people to move through it, but there are ways to take an awkward space and create an inviting, elegant living room from it.

1. First of all, reshape the space. If the empty room looks like a bowling alley simply chop the room in half. As much as you think do not want to cut a normal sized room in half and interrupt the flow of the space that is exactly what you do want to do in this situation. By dividing the room into two smaller areas you have accomplished a couple of things. First of all, you reshaped the space, so instead of a long alley, you have two smaller square spaces. Secondly, you made two distinct destinations, so now the energy of the room invites you in and expects you to linger rather than pulling you straight through and out the other end of the room. To define the separate spaces use area rugs and furniture layout. Setting two loveseats at a 90 degree angle can help form a corner which invites a conversational grouping, or anchoring a space with a large painting as a focal point can help define a separate space.

2. Make the illusion of a wider space by using mirrors. By hanging large mirrors on the wall opposite windows if you have them, you reflect the room back into itself and the effect is to make it feel twice as wide as it actually is. Well placed mirrors can also double the impact of your favorite abstract wall art, or you can magnify the effect of soft candlelight in the room by placing candle wall sconces where the mirrors will reflect their glow.

3. Keep your background neutral and use an accent color. Using a different accent color in each room within a room can also help define each unique space.

4. Use paint to create the illusion of a wider room by painting a slightly darker line along the top of the wall just under the crown molding. This technique visually makes a room seem wider than it actually is but still keeps the space intimate.

5. Use the middle of the room. All too often a decorating solution for a room involves lining the walls with furniture. Especially if you are creating a room with in a room, move your furniture to the center of each space and design from there. Weighting the center of a room with furniture rather than plastering it against the walls actually makes a room feel larger.

Armed with the basic tools for opening up your narrow space, take a critical look at your own narrow spaces, and see where you can makes some changes for the better.

All text copyright Shanel. Photo from Flickr - "The Living Room...part 1" courtesy of lawtonjm.