Decorate a Small Living Room for Christmas

A living room decorated for Christmas should put you in a cheerful holiday mood each time you enter the room. Your small living room can transform into the hub of holiday events if you decorate the available space in a festive manner, without compromising seating for family and friends. Choose decorations that fit your living room decor and space.

Gather decorations that match the color scheme and theme around which you want to focus your holiday decor. The decor doesn't have to match your living room's, but should at least reflect a complementary palette and style. For example, include rustic Christmas decorations if your living room is decorated with a rustic style. Opt for a warm color palette such as gold, red and green if your decor is warm. Use silver and blue or purple if your color palette is cool.

Remove any unnecessary decor or furniture. For example, if you have two end tables in your living room that you don't typically use, store one of them in the basement, attic or another room until after the holiday.

Set up your Christmas tree to serve as the focal point of your holiday decor. Place the tree in the first corner you see upon entering the room, or center it in front of the largest window. String lights, garland or tinsel and hang a few ornaments on the tree. Avoid stuffing the tree full of decorations. This can detract from the tree's charm and create an overwhelming, chaotic look.

Use a miniature Christmas tree, if necessary, on a tabletop or tucked in a corner by the sofa. If that isn't compact enough, consider a thin tree made of feathers, pinecones, candy or other compact materials. Include a decorative tree skirt if you have one.

Decorate your fireplace mantel as the centerpiece of your holiday decor if you don't have room for a tree. Keep the decorations simple and compact, such as slim candleholders and candles. Add some greenery, such as a wreath or swag. Other alternatives in lieu of a tree or mantel are to hang a festive wreath with a few ornaments and to decorate your houseplants with ribbons.

Accessorize the room. Use candy canes, small decoration collections such as snowmen, Santa Claus scenes and nativity scenes, and Christmas-themed candles or decorative plates. Fill jars or baskets with ornaments, Christmas candy, pinecones, evergreen sprigs or other decorations. Toss Christmas-themed pillows or throws on the sofa or chairs.

Decorate a Living Room Tropical Style

The tropical style of decorating conjures up palm trees, vibrant colors and tiki torches. Most people, however, do not want to put a tiki torch in their living room. There are other ways you can decorate your living room in a tropical style without making it seem like you are living in an touristy hotel room in Hawaii. Read on to find out how to decorate your living room tropically, without being tacky.

Choose neutral colored furniture in a natural wood, such as bamboo, birch or wicker. Stay away from metals.

Brighten up the furniture with colorful throw pillows in tropical colors and patterns, such as hot pink, turquoise or green. Add colorful throw rugs as well. Keeping the furniture neutral and adding splashes of tropical colors will keep your living room tropical looking without crossing the line into tacky.

Add plants. Place a tall, potted tree in the corner, and some plants on an end table or windowsill. Try to get a lush feel without covering every surface with greenery.

Let light in. Cover your windows with a bamboo shade, but keep it open as much as possible. Add sheer curtain panels on either side of the shade. Tie them back with brightly colored ribbon that matches the colors in your pillows and rugs.

Hang tropical-themed artwork on the wall, such as traditional beach scenes, or go with a more modern, abstract look by hanging abstract paintings that feature the colors in your rugs and pillows.

Raise a Sunken Living Room

Sunken living rooms were a popular feature in homes of earlier decades. In 2011, this design is not common, and people who have older homes with uneven floor heights often choose to raise the floor height to match the surrounding rooms. This is often easier to accomplish than you might think, because the ceiling is usually at the same level as the ceiling in the other rooms. Correcting a sunken floor can make rooms flow together better and look larger and more updated.

Empty the living room. Remove any carpet and padding. Use a pry bar, hammer, screwdriver and pliers to remove baseboards, tack strips and any fasteners left over in the living room subfloor. Clean the subfloor using a broom, dustpan and vacuum cleaner. Remove the material over the adjacent subfloor so that at least 6 inches of the subfloor is exposed around the perimeter of the room.

Measure the height from the living room subfloor to the bottom of the adjacent room subfloor. If the living room is a single step down this will be approximately 7 inches. For deeper floors the measurement will be more.

Remove any vertical material such as drywall, paneling or risers between the sunken room and the adjacent floor. You typically want to tie your new floor to the adjacent floor with bolts so that the floors move as one floor, rather than two.

Observe the construction used for the adjacent floors. In many cases, you can remove your sunken living room subfloor and match the construction pattern of the adjacent floor. Measure the distance between floor joists. Cut new floor joists 24 inches longer than your measurement.

Sister your new joist to an existing joist in an adjacent floor. Sistering means placing the new board against the old board and drilling through both to join them. Overlap the ends 12 inches onto the old joists. Drill four lag holes evenly spaced in a square pattern. Slide your lag bolts through the holes, and bolt them securely to the older beams. Repeat for each joist. Measure between your joists and cut 2-by-6-inch or 2-by-8-inch blocks. Nail the blocks between the joists using a nail gun to nail though the joists and into the ends of the blocks. Block every 4 feet and stagger your blocks.

Add additional post supports if your new joists are not resting on the old floor or joists of the sunken living room. Usually you can build up the existing framing, or you can rest on and tie into the existing framing and provide adequate support.

Position plywood subfloor sheathing perpendicular to the joists. Nail every 12 inches on center using subfloor fasteners, and stagger your joints. Your sheathing may be tongue and groove, and you may need to insulate and add a vapor barrier depending on the construction of your existing home. Your new subfloor should match the height of the adjacent subfloor exactly.

Decorate a Small Living Room

The living room is one of the most important rooms of the house, because that is where most of the living is done--hence the name! Most living rooms need to be multifunctional and have enough seating to comfortably fit the entire family plus company. This is easy to do if your living room is large. However, you may not have a large living room, especially if you live in a condo or apartment. Luckily, there are some specific things you can do to decorate a small living room that will make it seem bigger.

Choose the correct paint color. Paint colors can transform a room dramatically. Small rooms should be painted with cool tones such as grays, blues and greens. Gray is a great neutral color and looks terrific in living rooms, as it goes with any color scheme. The ceiling should be painted one shade lighter than the walls to make the room feel taller and airier.

Hang curtains near the ceiling. Choose curtains that stretch to the floor, and hang them higher than the top of the window. Four to six inches higher is a good height. Curtains that stretch from the ceiling to floor create the illusion of height and space in a small room.

Choose the correct seating. Most furniture companies make condo-sized sofas (some call them "apartment couches"). Use a combination of one apartment couch and a chair and a half, or a recliner. Two apartment couches facing each other with a coffee table in-between can also work well. Consider "armless" couches or chairs. They will make the space feel more open. Also, make sure you do not have too many pieces of furniture as this will only clutter up a small living room and make it feel very crowded.

Choose double-duty furniture. An ottoman or coffee table with hidden storage is great for hiding a stack of DVDs. An entertainment center with built-in bookshelves will allow you to display a few decorative treasures without having to cram a separate bookshelf into a small space.

Create a large focal point. Using a large item seems contrary to decorating a small space, but one large focal point will add style without feeling crowded. One large piece of art is much better than several small pieces, which will only serve to create a feeling of clutter.

Use mirrors. Mirrors open up a space and reflect light, making a room seem bigger. Place a large mirror over the sofa, or opposite a window to capture the light. You can also put several small mirrors together to create the feeling of one large mirror.

Design a Sunken Living Room

Sunken living rooms, once popular in the 1960s, are experiencing a resurgence. Of course, designing a sunken living room is best done on a home that hasn't been built, as it will have an impact on the shape of the foundation. Adding a sunken living room to a finished house will require foundation work, but can still be done. In designing your sunken living room, you have to consider the depth and dimensions of the desired space. For that, keep in mind the size of your living room furniture.

Set the perimeter for your living room. Typically, a sunken living room is more than just the "pit" area but also includes the surrounding, raised area that is at the usual floor height. Decide how much of the living room will be sunken, setting the length and width of your space. At a minimum, you'll need enough space for your sofa and table. Chairs and additional end tables may be intended for the sunken space or can be placed on the surrounding "ledge."

Pick the number of steps you want to descend into the pit. In other words, how deep do you want the sunken room? Generally, a sunken living room has only one or two steps downward. For rooms with only one step, the entire edge on all sides is accessible with a simple step down. For sunken rooms with two steps, decide if you want the steps to completely surround the sunken pit or if you'll designate two sides as entrance and exit sides. Typically, you'd place the steps along the shorter sides, leaving the longer sides for where the couch will stretch out.

Cover the flooring. Most commonly, sunken living rooms are thought of with carpet covering the pit and running up the sides. However, with the popularity of using tiles in living spaces, you can instead cover the flooring and sides of the pit with tile. Or use tile around the raised portion and down the sides but have carpet at the bottom of the sunken pit. Mix and match as you prefer.

Decorate your sunken living room as you would any living room. Typically, the pit area is designated as a conversational area and usually contains the largest sitting arrangement. Additional seating and other furnishings can encircle the sunken area on the raised portions of flooring. Enjoy your sunken living room.

Decorate a Living Room-Dining Room Combo

Open plan doesn't always mean spacious, modern, light-filled -- all the expansive words to describe the ideal. The real thing can be cavernous, cramped, shadowed and awkward. Choices of colors, textures, furniture scale and storage all affect the use and enjoyment of your one-room-fits-all living-dining space. First, analyze your use of both rooms, and then favor frequent use over occasional when allocating space. You need to link and separate the two halves of your room.


"Tiny" Doesn't Cover It
Your glorious combo living-dining room is smaller than a shoebox. The minute you move a single piece of furniture into it, you're going to be barking your shins. Get tough and think "stage set" to make this pizza-slice of real estate work for you. Put a bistro table and two chairs directly in front of the fireplace, and flank the fireplace with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Underscore the "dining room" space with a large framed piece of art over the mantel, squared exactly behind the table. Two identical wood stools, or upholstered ottomans with hidden storage, sit in front of the bookcases until they're needed for company or dinner guests. Place a sofa or chaise with big plump pillows against the opposite wall, on an area rug large enough to extend past it and under two matching chairs sitting side-by-side, perpendicular to one end of the sofa, to form an L. Tuck a clear acrylic trunk or tiny coffee table into the corner formed by the seating.

Limited Palette
Monochrome and neutral colors impose a sense of calm over a busy shared living-dining room, but that doesn't mean you must settle for dull. Decorator-white walls and ceiling, white sectional, white leather-covered or upholstered dining chairs, white pendant lamps and marble paver floors pull the room together. Matte black coffee table and dining table, black furniture legs, and a black-and-white contemporary living room carpet link and define the spaces. Square shapes in black and white further blend both areas. Cube-shaped club chairs upholstered in nubby black echo the square black frames around a square grid of wall-mounted black-and-white art prints. White dining chair backs are square over black metal legs. A narrow black border traces the top line of the banks of windows wrapping around the corners of the room.

Sage Advice

Architectural Digest posed the one-room-fits-all challenge to some of its favorite designers, who had very individual ideas about spacing and decor. Carleton Varney recommended a Coromandel screen, green plants and directed lighting to form a barrier between the two functional areas. Hugh Newell Jacobsen suggested devoting two-thirds of the space to living room seating, with the back of the sofa against a refectory table of the same length. Chairs lined up along the far wall of the dining space turn the long table into a banquet for guests. Ellie Cullman stressed the importance of keeping colors and decor unified, and defining the areas with two carpets. Mitchell Turnbough advised treating the dining area as a library, the table as a library table, and pulling in chairs to use the cleared table for supper or company.

Hiding in Plain Sight
Invest in a wall system that houses your books, media gear and flat screen -- and contains a fold-down or fold-up panel that becomes a dining table for six. Furnish the room with Mid-Century Modern finds or good reproductions, including a rainbow array of molded fiberglass Eames chairs. The chairs are colorful art and seating -- arranged around the sofa and modest coffee table and lined up along one wall when not in use. Pull the chairs over to the folded-out table for dinner. The table also works as a desk, and the wall system may contain closed cupboards for storing dinnerware and home office equipment and supplies.

Arrange Furniture in a Small Living Room

The living room is tiny -- nothing grand or imposing about it. But it's a high-traffic, multi-function space that should advertise your excellent taste and clever furniture-arranging skills. So decide what will fit and where to put it before you start shoehorning in the massive couch and inherited antiques from your old space. Where you put the furniture, and what you surround it with, determines how well that small living room works.

Go Sofa-Free
No rule says that every living room must have a sofa. Skip that step and free up a lot of space in the living room, without sacrificing seating. Cluster individual chairs -- matching club chairs, a reclining lounger and footstool angled into a corner, upholstered ottomans or leather-covered poufs that double as tables with a tray or seating without -- around a pair of clear acrylic end tables, pushed together to form a coffee table. Under the conversation grouping, a decor-friendly carpet -- faded oriental, dhurrie, abstract modern, spare sisal -- pulls the space together. Floor lamps with curved tubing allow you to reposition them at will, as they don't require a table base and can work as reading lamps or for ambient lighting.

The Unlovely "L"

Your open plan space is not so open; it's really a small awkward "L." Whether the kitchen flows into the dining room and the living room gets the short side of the "L," or the narrow living room empties into a truncated dining room, you have a balancing challenge. Define the conversation area with a large carpet, organizing your main seating wholly or partly on the carpet and creating a sense of intimacy by positioning two chairs to face a sofa or loveseat. Designate leftover corners for storage and display cabinets, a quiet reading nook or a music corner. Install a translucent divider between the living and dining areas -- a "curtain" of clear plastic shapes strung on invisible wire or a latticework screen. Use an accent wall in the dining room to set it apart, leaving the expanse of living room walls unbroken.

Palette for Petites
Control the eye with color in a small living room. That doesn't mean everything has to be white. Consider a rich aubergine grass cloth on walls framed by glossy white trim, under a white ceiling. Keep the focus on high-gloss white for the window frame, shade, under-window radiator, and window seat, creating a light oasis in the room. Ceiling-to-floor raw silk drapes the same color as the grass cloth are elegant and erase the boundaries between wrap-around grass cloth and the window break and corners, softly expanding the room. Now you can add a pale, muted carpet over hardwood floors and some definitive color to furnishings. A camel-colored couch positioned a few inches from one wall complements the rich color. An aubergine chair angled next to the couch blends in, but cinnabar accents in a few throw pillows, and a single piece of wall-hung art reflecting those colors enlivens the space without a hint of visual clutter.

Climb the Walls
Older buildings often feature apartments with modest square footage and high ceilings. You can't increase the floor space, but you can fool the eye into seeing "expansive" rather than "cramped." Build or assemble a wall system that covers one wall floor-to-ceiling. Alternate closed cupboards with open shelves for books, art and even the TV. Fill an odd corner near a room entrance with a tall antique cabinet that provides clutter-busting storage and set an armless chair in front of it. Hang the drapes at ceiling height and let them pool on the floor behind a pair of upholstered ottomans. The seating shifts around according to need. Cover a wall behind a daybed with a framed collection of art or photographs. Use wall space with the same care as floor space to open up your room and maximize every inch.