Organization: ideas for tidying up your living room
Organization is key in life as well as in your home: start getting a grip on life by getting a grip on your living room.
Let’s get real: a messy, cluttered house is a symptom, and not just of laziness: everyone is lazy to some degree, but a cluttered house is in general a symptom of not wanting to face reality. “I can’t find my planner! Oh well, I guess I’ll find out later what I’m supposed to get done by tomorrow.” Disorganization is a slippery slope: you let items you don’t need pile up around you, and before you know it, not only your house has become a messy, dirty heap of useless stuff, but you also have lost track of your own priorities (and deadlines). But don’t worry, we’re here to help! And, since the living room is where we tend to spend most of our time at home, there you go: take a look at how to style a cool, minimal living room.
Optimize your space
If you work from home or do any kind of activity sitting at a table while you’re home, it’s imperative that you trace a clear distinction between where you eat and where you work. However, if you happen to live in a small-ish apartment, you probably don’t have a living room and a study room. So, what you can do is placing a table in your living room. You want to get a basic and functional table, but not a desk: whichever activity you’ll use it for, you want to maintain an informal atmosphere. Wooden planks as a table top will instantly give your living room a more relaxed look.
As far as chairs are concerned, choose a functional design, as long as it is ergonomic and comfortable. For example, these white chairs are perfect for a living room table: the armrests make them closer to an armchair rather than a dinner chair, and you can easily make them look and feel less neutral with a personal touch, like a soft, colorful pillow.
Basic light
Of course, you need some source of light somewhere around this table; as you’re doing work here, you should get a powerful lamp. There are other areas of your house where light can be delicate and diffused, but this is not one of them! Avoid floor lamps: as beautiful as they can be, they’re in general not very suited to desk work. A good solution if you want to optimize your space as much as you can, is a powerful ceiling lamp. A lighting solution like the one below is ideal if you have high ceilings and you’d like the lamp to illuminate the rest of the room, not just your table.
A second, more focused solution, is a table lamp. How do you know if you should get one? Well, first of all, your table’s surface needs to be relatively large and you need to be near a power point. And secondly, it’s a great solution if you want the light to fall only on the table. Tip: choose a minimal, straightforward design with one outstanding feature! Being minimal is not an excuse for being boring.
Put everything back
As your mum always told you, the golden rule for a tidy house is to put everything back in its original place. The point is, you need to have that space! A large shelving system is what you need to get: every book and object you use in the living room needs to be put back right after you’ve finished using it. Our suggestion if you want to get rid of stuff you don’t need, is to put every single item in your living room on your new shelves. Then, have a one-week trial: after these seven days, everything you haven’t used needs to be thrown out. A black and white, sharp-looking shelving system will be a great ally against chaos: its clean and basic look will encourage you to keep it that way.
An evergreen: the coffee table
As you’re moving away from your workstation, you must remember this is your living room: there will be nights when you’ll be sitting in front of the TV, or reading a book, and you’ll need a surface for any glasses, mugs or bottles you’re drinking from. A coffee table is therefore necessary, but don’t go overboard: you want basic geometric shapes, like circles, squares, triangles… A great design solution is a table that combines more than one shape, in order to add dynamism to the room. Again, it’s best to go for a straightforward and minimal design: it will be so much easier to make your living room appear tidy.
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Have a few less basic pieces of furniture
So far, we’ve managed to give your living room a pretty tidy and minimal look, so we can now afford to go less minimal with your couch. Because let’s be honest, a) the most important feature of a couch is its level of comfiness, and b) a couch should be the living room’s centerpiece. Depending on how much space you have, you might have to go for a small couch; if you live by yourself, this velvety dormeuse is ideal for snuggling up with a book and taking great naps.
A small living room normally allows for a small couch and one or two armchairs: play with shapes and colors... but not too much! A two-tone armchair will be colorful enough to cheer the room up.
However, if you often have friends around and you have quite a lot of space, a large modular sofa might be better suited to your needs. If it’s a big couch, try to opt for neutral and / or light colors: it’s a couch, not a hot-air balloon.
Coordination
A great way to create harmony in a room is coordinating the furnishings. We suggest trying to coordinate the lamps; for instance, if you previously chose to place a lamp on your table, try looking for a similarly designed floor or ceiling lamp. Ideally, the two lamps should belong to the same designer and collection.
Related: Do you need to declutter more than just your living room? Then you might be interested in this article we wrote about decluttering your home décor. Give it a shot!
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