The living room is one of the most visible rooms of the home, and with the prevailing popularity of the open concept plan on the main floor, it’s easily the one where your personal style can make the most impact.
In the past, the living room had a more formal function. It was called a sitting room, or a parlour, where homeowners receive guests. Today, it’s a bit more informal – and is largely the spot in the home where the family can gather to have fun.
In fact, the living room - in a single-family home, at least – isn’t just necessarily on the main floor. The bonus room on the second floor, or the entertainment space in the basement can also be termed as living rooms and designed as such to take on this function for family fun.
“The living room is a gathering place with comfortable furniture where the family can relax and watch a movie or gather to play board games or videogames,” says Rochelle Cote, the owner and principal of Rochelle Cote Interior Design.
“It can be any room where family, friends and guests can gather and be welcome and comfortable. In that sense, the living room can be in a developed basement, the bonus room upstairs or the free space of a bachelor suite.”
Rochelle should know. In a career in interior design that has spanned over a quarter century, she and her team at Rochelle Cote Interior Design have come up with some of the most captivating living room designs in the various homebuilder showhomes, and private residences in the city.
Her collaborations with Calbridge Homes for the Calgary Health Trust’s grand prize lottery homes have unfailingly captured the imaginations of many – and no doubt, have been a big part of the charity’s continued success.
And in her opinion, the key to a compelling and dynamic living room design is selecting the “correct” area carpet.
Magic carpet ride
“The area carpet can create a unique room regardless of the size. It also helps to bring the room together and group the furniture together so that it is all connected. This is the piece that is often forgotten, and without it the room feels cold. The area carpet adds warmth, colour and style!”
The area carpet does set the tone, style and mood of the room, but having hardwood floor as a base really sets the timbre for the entire home.
“The best flooring for a living room is still hardwood. It offers a nice clean palette is comfortable under foot and gives a warm feel. Area carpets offer that extra layer on the hardwood creating more warmth,” Rochelle tells R+D.
She is also a fan of the luxury vinyl plank (LVP) flooring, and she has used that mainly in the developed basements of her many lottery home projects. “Many of the lottery homes I worked on had walk-out basements that led directly to a lake or a river, so the LVP provides a lot of functionality in those cases, as they are easier to maintain.”
Boundaries of an open concept
The open concept main floor blends the kitchen, dining room and living room into one big space, which is good for entertaining. “Yes, everyone still wants that open concept. However, many times the dining room and the living room start to merge together when this happens. We often use a console table or area carpet to define the living room space,” she says.
Choosing the furniture for the living room will, of course, depend on taste, but scale plays an important role too. “I think that the furniture is a reflection of the client. It gives the home a comfortable elegance that is inviting and comfortable for their family.”
Having wall-to-wall windows sets off the living room nicely, of course. But even in smaller homes that don’t have this benefit, using drapery to frame the windows have the immediate effect of giving the room a softness and by drawing the eyes up, makes the room seem larger. “Using fabric gives any setting a more textured feel and helps achieve a more natural look,” she says.
The elephant in the room
The most controversial choice in designing a main floor living room has been the TV. Some people still don’t want the television in a room that is supposed to encourage conversation between people. But Rochelle thinks it’s high time to change this view.
“Many people fight the fact that TV is part of our lives. It provides information for businesses, and entertainment for the family. I place TVs above the fireplace all the time! If the client does not want the TV in the direct line of sight, we will place it to the side of the fireplace in a built-in,” she says.
Even with the slimmer, flat screen TVs of today, they can still be difficult to hide in the living room. “Either remove it altogether or look at TVs like the Samsung The Frame TV. You turn it on and it’s a TV, when you turn it off it displays art on the screen.”
She adds that if the client wants a TV above a fireplace, they need to look at the specs for the fireplace’s firebox itself. Follow the guidelines in the firebox’s specifications to determine how close it can be placed to a combustible product. From there, you can determine how high to mount the TV. We often set the firebox on the floor to ensure that the TV doesn’t end up too high.”
But TV or no, RCID has always worked to achieve the best results for its clients – whether that means attracting the casual showhome visitor or creating the essence of a livable, forever home for private residences. And emphasizing living in the living room is part of what they do best.
Staging the living room
RCID describes the process to make the most of any living room.
- Create a strong CONCEPT (collate images together of spaces, colors or art that inspires you, and try to incorporate those ideas into your space)
- Select an Area Carpet that follows your concept
- Usually contrast a sofa to the carpet, and use lines for the sofa that follow the concept
- Select Accent Chairs
- Pull it together with a coffee table or set of tables (all tables should be 20-inches from the sofa or chair…that will determine your size required of coffee table in the space)
- Select all end tables (either side of sofa) and accent tables (for between two chairs)
- Select Lamps (edgy or soft) again to go with concept
- Select Toss Pillows (colors to work with concept or carpet) At least 2 on the sofa, and a lumbar for each of the accent chairs.
- Select all Art to pull everything together (or mirrors add to a small space; and create an open feel)