Vivid Doors We’ve all been in situations that call for an emergency living-room reshuffle. Perhaps your in-laws have announced a surprise visit. Perhaps a recent social gathering has resulted in a red wine stain that you’d rather conceal. Or perhaps you just fancy a change. There are a number of easy, quick solutions available!
MOVE THE FURNITURE AROUND
Furniture layout is really the sort of thing that you should try to get right when you first lay down the furniture, since it is awkward to rearrange later. A room’s furniture layout is generally best determined by either feng-shui or the location of the room’s focal point such as the television. Determine what the room will be used for, and arrange the furniture accordingly.
When rearranging furniture, it is worth adhering to a couple of general principles. We suggest that you lay sofas parallel to walls; use a tape measure in order to ensure that furniture will actually fit where you intend to place it; and, before commencing the task, enlist the aid of a friend – especially since it requires the moving of heavy objects.
Image via www.housemixblog.com
ADD A THROW
If you need to freshen up your upholstery, furniture can be utterly transformed through the use of a throw – which is basically a big sheet of fabric designed to cover your sofas and chairs, turning them a different colour. With just one throw, your dreary beige sofa is transformed into a dynamic khaki one, in a matter of seconds. A simple solution, and an effective one.
CHANGE THE CURTAINS
A room’s curtains will also vastly influence its look. There are a raft of styles available, and your choice will largely be dictated by how drastically you want to change the room. Perhaps you have curtains, but would prefer blinds. Perhaps you’re a blind owner that would prefer curtains. Before proceeding, however, it should be noted before proceeding that curtains are a very expensive business, and that this is particularly true if you have an irregular-shaped window, which are common in older properties.
BUY A PICTURE
Unique art is not particularly suited to our purposes, for two reasons. Firstly, uniqueness is not conducive to rapid transportation – if you are considering a painting in Surrey, and you live in Edinburgh, it is unlikely that it will arrive at your wall within the allotted sixty-minute time-frame. Secondly, paintings are costly. Fortunately, prints, relatively speaking, are not.
If time and finance is against you, then, it is worth visiting your local furniture shop, and browsing the selection of prints and posters. You might also find placards proclaiming some heart-warming sentiment or other, which will serve a similar purpose. As a bonus, art can also be used to conceal damage to the underlying plaster (which may or may not have resulted from previous attempts to rearrange furniture).
CHANGE THE LIGHTING
Admittedly, this particular ‘hack’ only works at night, but since a great deal of time is spent in the living room during the evening, it seems a worthwhile undertaking. Lampshades are available in a huge variety of shapes, colours, and materials, from transparent glass to opaque fabric. Changing the lampshade can therefore have dramatic consequences on the look of the room, even if the light itself remains the same. Installing a table lamp, particularly a coloured one, can affect the room in the same way, particularly a coloured one. Depending on the rest of the room, you might also try something like a lava lamp – but this is only recommended for the adventurous.
