23 Best Small Living Room Ideas (Fresh Hacks Everyday)

Limited living space seems already been a common issue for most of us, especially if we live in an apartment or a very small house.

But, this does not translate to a lousy and cramped living room if we know which one is the best small living room ideas you can try.

The difference between tiny and spacious living room is only the size of your canvas. There is no way your preference design style from small living room ideas are not applicable just because the space is small.

So get your decorative elements right and bring your creative mind on. Here is a list of small living room ideas you can have to start to decorate your own living room.

1. Tiny Tropical Living Room Ideas

If your tiny living room is placed near the opening, like to your front yard or garden, this tropical theme is the perfect style for your small living room.

The openings on one or more side of your living room gives you beautiful natural sunshine lighting, which you could compliment by the plantation inside your living room.

Thus, not only as the statement of your tropical theme, it gives you bright natural green colour as well as freshening your indoor air. What an inspiring small living room ideas you should try!

Additionally, traditional craftsmanship, such as rattan pot or bamboo sheets webbing as wall decoration will be perfect to enhance the tropical vibe without consuming more space.

Then, installing dark wood floors into your living room, it’s a good choice to bring contemporary farmhouse ideas.

Colourful patterned elements will complete these vibrant tropical small living room ideas. Also, it gives you the cheerful mood inside your home.

2. Neutral and Natural

Neutral colours, such as white, grey, and brown, known the best to make the room feels more cool and spacious.

This will be even better if other decorative elements like the window treatment in the design are using natural texture and natural colours as the complimentary of these colours.

You can get this texture from wood chairs, concrete floorings, or husk rugs, to set the mood even more neutral. For small spaces, natural colours and texture is better than pattern because its neutrality does not make your space look full.

Even though this small living room idea consists of natural elements, it does not have to be a traditional-looking living room. The simplicity of each natural element that compliments each other can also bring out the other version modernity that meets natural elements.

3. Neutral and Sophisticated Ideas

Not only good to create cool and spacious ambience, but the neutral mood also makes a good background for other decorative elements to stand out.

This will be perfect if your intention is to put a lot of decorative elements within the room. You can also complement the neutral colors with luxurious decorative elements to create a sophisticated living room style.

Sophisticated design living room is the best choice for you if you want to create a formal ambience. The key is to accessories with the right material instead of using a space-consuming decorative elements.

This is a smart way so your small space that still having the formal and sophisticated ambience.

The most common materials that give you formal ambience are metal and glass. Combining gold coloured simple furniture with glass in a neutral coloured room is one easy step that always works to create formal yet comfy looking living room.

4. Unified Colour Ideas

Colour, a general topic issue of small living room ideas is the never-ending elements to explore. If your space is limited but you want to display a lot of things, unifying the colour is what to do. The key to not make it look ‘too-much’ is by picking all the elements from the same colour range. One colour can have hundreds of shades. Therefore, your display won’t be plain but also won’t be too much.

Using a lot of shades of colour creates an organic extraordinary pattern in your room that blends perfectly. By choosing shades from the same colour helps you create an easy colour combination that will always compliments each other.

5. Popped of Bright Color

If the unified colours or the neutral tone is too ordinary for you, you can also pop one colour out. Using one contrast bright colour in your modern living room to brightened the mood up.

This colour will be the focal points in the room, so you better keep other elements simple. The main idea for this small living room idea is not to over-do the decoration.

Take our advice living room rugs ideas if you’re looking for a sense of purity and modernity, you can choose rugs with a single color

Each colour has its own psychology that it bears with its presence, here are some of the bright colours that you might use to brighten up your small living room:

Red

The colour red gives strong energy in the room as red resonates passion and energetic love. Placing the red colour as the focal points in the room will bring the mood to be more active and energetic as well as romantic.

Blue

The colour blue is strongly related to the peaceful feelings and safety. Choosing blue as the focal point will bring the ambiance of the room to a calming mood.

Yellow

The colour yellow is the brightest colour in the spectrum. Psychologically, colour yellow brings up happy mood and cheerful ambience to the room.

6. Black and White Ideas

So, what are you waiting for? Let turn this tricky situation into a fun way to create your personal apartment living room ideas.

Another easy yet cool colour combination for your small living room ideas is black and white. It’s bold and it never gets old. Black and white provide you a clear ‘background and objects’ dimension for your design.

It will totally go with your colour palette for the rest of the house but also stands out on its own as an independent room.

The other thing about black and white small living room idea is that it’ll help you to shop on a budget. It is mainly because monochromatic decorative items often sold at lower prices than the colourful ones.

7. Functional and Space Saving

In terms of limited space, there are ways to make your living rooms as comfy as you want without consuming a lot of space.

Merged with another room

Living room does not always have to be stand on its own. You can always merge it with other rooms. For small space, your living room could also be your dining room. Or, if you live in a studio apartment, your living room could also be you bedroom.

The important thing if you decided to merge your living room is to think carefully about the layout. Placing your furniture is crucial if you have small space to work with.

You have to think carefully, especially about the seating because it is going to lead to how the activities happen within the space. Each combination of seating number and the position of the sofa and couches will creates different ambience for activities in the living room.

The other thing you should note is the movement flow you will create by the placement of your furniture. How the living room connects to other rooms and how the flow within the living rooms is going to affect how the dwellers do their activities within the room.

Hidden Storage

Keep your small living room clean and organize is a key to make it more cozy and liveable. Many furniture today offer you a hidden storage where you can keep your messy stuff out of display. It also helps you to decor your living room on a budget cause you practically killing two birds with one stone. By storing your stuffs in your furniture, you also save the number of the item you need to buy.

Multi-functioned furniture also gives a certain uniqueness into your living room since it’s often came in a practical shape and sizes. It also gives you more room to decorate because all of your stuff is hidden and will not cramped the room.

8. Decorative yet Practical Living Room Ideas

In contrary, interesting way to decorate your small living room is by storing your stuff on a certain organization so it will look as a decorative element in the room. The main challenge is to find a way to store your stuffs so it will compliments the room and not making it looks messy. Also, you need a serious commitment to always put things back the way it organized every time.

You can do this by organizing your stuff by colours and then by size, or the other way around, depending on the final looks you are after. By applying this, not only you’re saving your expenses on decorative elements, you also bring your characteristic and identity into the design.

Using your own stuff to be decorated let them tell your stories. This small living room idea is perfect especially for you who love to invite your closest ones over.

9. Classic Style Small Living Room

Classic style is often being related to extravagant decoration and spacious environment. But actually, it is also possible to create a classic style living room in your small living room. Since space is limited, you might want to consider the number of big furniture in the room in order to keep it spacious.

You can pick one large item that gives the most classic vibe in the room as the focal point and the other furniture is simpler and being complimentary. In this style, find perfect fireplace ideas for your room, if you happen to have one in your home, an antique traditional cabinet, or a beautiful old-style chandelier as the focal points.

Additionally as the complimentary, yellow lighting, leather furnishing, or fur rug will be an elegant match to the design.

10. Light It Up

A very fun element to play within decorating your space is by playing with the lighting. For small living room space, lighting is a perfect solution because it creates a strong ambience of comfort without consuming much space.

Lighting also has setting flexibility that encourages you to create multiple ambience for a different time in one room. Get creative with your light placing and installation will bring the best of your tiny living room. Another thing to put in mind that you can also choose lighting with bold design to make it the center of attention in your living room.

11. Visually Manipulative

Manipulate the room to visually look spacious? Why not! Here are some outstanding tricks below you can try:

Visual Continuity

If your space happened to let you to have a living room that stands on its own but you think its way too small of a space, eliminate any partition in the room is a great way to create visual continuity to the other rooms.

This way, you will get a clear layout of a living room but still provided with the spacious ambience. But, if partition is really needed, picking a transparent material will still give you the spaciousness.

Mirror

As we all know, mirror is doubling the space you have, visually. Placing mirror on one side of your living room provides you twice as big of a visual space. Doing this you have to carefully design the lighting because not also doubling the visual space, mirrors also double the lighting in the room.

12. Retro Small Living Room Ideas

We all know that 80s style furniture is back in the market. This is a great opportunity for us to bring them into our small living room by making a retro style living room. Good things about retro style furniture that it has simple design and slim structure. It will fit just perfectly in your limited space living room.

Wood-structured furniture with bright colour finishing brings the strong vibe of retro style. Popping a lot of bright colours within your design is going to cheer up the mood of your living room. Eccentricity of bright colour combination is the essence of this style. So don’t be afraid to explore your colour palette if you want to have this style in your living room.

You can apply the colour combination into your selection of pillows or cushion, and also into your wall decoration. Remember, the floor is not your only canvas!

13. Japanese Style

This one is really great small living room ideas for you who have a very small space in your living room. Japanese style living room is simply a floor-seated living room. This way you do not need to add big furniture like couches or sofas in your tiny space. One comfortable rug or a set of cushions plus a clean-looking coffee table and you’re good to go.

The simplicity of this style not only space-saving, but also gives you more flexibility. This small living room idea is easier for you to transform your living room into something else anytime you want. In Japan, this floor-seated living room sometimes also used a dining room for the family. What a great way of small living room ideas to save space, right?

14. Wall Decor

Think vertically! Your small living room does not have enough space for you to put any decorative elements on the floor? Make the best out of big canvas in your small living room, which is your wall.

Pour your creative decorating ideas into your wall and let it be the main attention in the room. This way, you can have cool-decorated room without consuming any functional space. Designing a living room can simply start from the wall decor ideas like hang paintings.

The key to make a good wall presentation is to create a beautiful composition of your wall decor. Play with the size and the colour of the components is a very fun way to do it. Each composition can totally tune your small living room into different mood and ambience.

15. Rustic Style Ideas

Rustic style decor embraces the material and texture you are using instead of ornaments you put on display. It means, you are able to apply this style in your living room by carefully select the material for your functional items to create rustic ambience without waste any space in decorative elements.

This is a very nice way not only to save some space, but also to save your spending on your living room decor. Soft colour combination also makes the mood in your tiny space become more spacious. It is also a very great way to make your living room blend in to the rest of the house.

One must-have item for rustic style is a bold-texture rug and wooden furniture as its complimentary. Rustic style ideas for one of your small living room, totally inviting!

16. Window Nook Ideas

Your tiny living room can be your dreamy get away! Fashion your beloved nook and transform it into your private living room is a great way to utilise tiny space in the house.

If you are living alone or only living with your beloved one, the nook small living room idea is the perfect idea for you. The small space brings the closeness and the enjoyment of yourself alone or with your beloved one. You can decor your nook with decor elements that really resembles you or with your favourite stuffs to make your time in the nook your quality alone time.

17. Under the Staircase

Not only your window nook, you can also transform your tiny space under the staircase into your personal living room.

The small space that the stair provides creates a personal enclosure for you and your personal activities. You do not need to add much decorative elements because the activities within this space are that counts. Bring in the stuff you need and organise it as your decorative elements. Make it as comfy as you want, and work with your cushions and pillows to decorate.

18. Scandinavian Style

Scandinavian style is a design movement focusing on simplicity, minimalism and functionality. Is not that all that we want in our small living room?

Scandinavian is a great small living room idea to give your living room a sophisticated look yet comfortable.

The minimalistic of the decoration elements, open up the spaciousness of the room. This ambience is really good to enhance activities within the room because all the decorative elements are functional.

Scandinavian encourage using a neutral colour that brings peaceful ambience. Simple furniture shape and minimalist composition of Scandinavian style make your living room looks organized and clean without you doing all the work.

19. Arabian Style

Similar to the Japanese Style, the unique small living room ideas, Arabian style living room, is also giving you chance to create a floor-seated living room. You can add a comfortable sofa in the corner if you have enough space, but even without one, you can have a cool ethnical living room. Colorful cushions and bright patterned rug will transform your small living room into Arabian wonderland.

The main elements in Arabian style are the combination of pattern, bright colour, and unique looking decoration elements. The huge difference between Arabian style and Japanese style is the ambience they create. Japanese style creates calm and peaceful ambience, while Arabian style gives more festive and cheerful mood into the room.

20. Comfy Balcony

Nobody says that small living room ideas suggested has to be indoor. For us who lived in a studio apartment, usually the indoor space is very limited. But sometimes, it has a small balcony space on one side of the apartment. If that is the case, turning your balcony into a comfortable small living room is a marvelous idea.

By having your living room at your balcony, you are provided with natural lighting as well as natural fresh air. This is a good condition for you to make plantation your decorative elements. You also do not need to do much on your wall decor, because the outside scenery is your wall decor.

What a creative small living room ideas to relax your mind!

21. By the Window

The other way to use the outdoor space for your living room is by arranging your layout near your window. Cornered layout in a small space sometimes gives the feeling of narrow space.

However, by choosing the space that has a window, you bring the outdoor spaciousness into the room. This also gives you beautiful scenery as your wall decor as well as beautiful natural lighting into your space.

By putting your small space near your window, you don’t need to use a lot of space of your house to make your living room looks standout and spacious. The easiest and simplest way of small living room ideas you must try!

22. Industrial Style Small Living Room

Similar to rustic style, industrial style also emphasises the material you used instead of the decorative object to create the ambience. If rustic is more about soft colour with warm ambience, industrial brings more cool and modern vibe.

You can achieve this vibe by using a combination of stainless steel, clear glass, exposed bricks and distressed wood material in your small living room.

The cold colour tone appears from those material combinations is mainly the essence for industrial style. The more simple your decorative elements is the better for this small living room ideas because you want to emphasize the composition of the material you used, not the object you placed.

23. Customised Furniture Living Room

The one thing you can also do to make the best out of your tiny living room is to customize your furniture. This way you can have the most fitted and suited furniture for your living room. You can design the shape, the colors and the size of your furniture accordingly.

Customize your furniture will give you the challenging experience of design that you will not get when you just buy your furniture.

But in most situations, this option will cost you more money than just buying your furniture in the store and arrange it. Customize your furniture also takes more time, because you need to design it first then give time to get it produced by your trusted carpentry.

Customized furniture inspiration, one of a great small living room ideas that totally enlivens your lovely space!

These wonderful small living room ideas are for your guide to explore your décor journey. Each style has its own characteristic that sure brings its own mood into your tiny living room.

Smaller space should be a fun challenge for you to create your own style. Don’t be afraid to play with colors and shape to create a comfy yet trendy living room space at your home. Happy decorating!