Living Room Decorating Ideas

Living Room Decorating Ideas

For those interested in information on how to decorate a living room Stickley here presents a number of ideas, in a rustic or mission type style, for decorating a living room.

These ideas are suitable for decorating both the large and small living room and come with interior decorating pictures.

Decorating Ideas for a Living Room

¶ Unquestionably the most important room in the house is the living room, and in a small or medium sized home this room, with the addition of a small hall or vestibule and a well planned kitchen, is all that is needed on the first floor.

Craftsman Interior
Craftsman Interior.
Craftsman living room seen from the reception hall. This is rather a pronounced example of the craftsman idea of rooms divided only by posts and partial partitions which serve as a basis for seats, bookcases or plain paneling. In this case the living room is two steps lower than the level of the hall.

¶ A large and simply furnished living room, where the business of home life may be carried on freely and with pleasure, may well occupy all the space that is ordinarily partitioned into small rooms conventionally planned to meet supposed requirements. It is the executive chamber of the household, where the family life centers and from which radiates that indefinable home influence that shapes at last the character of the nation and the age. In the living room of the home, more than in almost any other place, is felt the influence of material things. It is a place where work is to be done and it is also the haven of rest for the worker. It is the place where children grow and thrive and gain their first impressions of life and of the world. It is the place to which a man comes home when his days work is done and where he expects to find himself comfortable and at ease in surroundings that are in harmony with his daily life, thought and pursuits.

Craftsman Style Interior
Craftsman Style Interior
A living room which is also used as for library and workroom. Note the way in which the desk with its drawers and pigeon holes is built into the wall so that it forms a part of the bookcase. The long row of casements with the window seat below not only floods the room with light but forms a decorative feature of the construction.

¶ In creating a home atmosphere, the thing that pays and pays well is honesty. A house should be the outward and visible expression of the life, work and thought of its inmates. In its planning and furnishing, the station in life of its owner should be expressed in a dignified manner, not disguised. If servants cannot be afforded without too heavy a tax upon the family finances, build the house so that it is convenient to get along without them. It is astonishing how easy the care of a house can be made by the simple process of eliminating unnecesary things. The right kind of a home does not drag out all that there is in a man to keep it going, nor is the care of it too heavy a burden upon a woman. It should be so planned that it meets, in the most straightforward manner, the actual requirements of those who live in it, and so furnished that the work of keeping it in order is reduced to a minimum.

¶ It is the first conception of a room that decides whether it is to be a failure or a success as a place to live in, for in this lies the character that is to be uniquely its own. In every house, however, modest, there can be a living room that shows an individuality possessed by no other, an individuality that is actually a part of the place, if the room be planned to meet the real needs of those who are to live in it and to turn to the best advantage the conditions surrounding it. These conditions are as many as there are rooms. The situation and surroundings of the plot of ground on which a house is built has much to do with the position of the living room in the plan of that house. As it is the principal room, it should have an exposure which insures plenty of sunlight for the greater part of the day and also the pleasantest outlook possible to the situation. Both of these considerations, as well as the best arrangement of wall spaces, govern the placing of the windows and of outside doors, which may open into the veranda, the sun room or the garden.

Craftsman Furnishings
Craftsman Furnishings.
Corner of a living room that is also used as a work room. The paneling on either side of the chimneypiece extends to the ceiling so that the entire wall space is lined with wood.

More decorating living room ideas over the page, in Part 2: Living Room Designs.



This is Living Room Decorating Ideas.


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