Formal doesn’t need to mean stuffy when you employ an exuberant decor sense in your living room to make a stylish, welcoming space for family and guests to enjoy. You do not need to devote a good deal of cash clean up well — without turning your home into a 28, to showcase your prized antiques. Begin with a colour scheme or layout component which appeals to you and balance each added touch for a glossy, approachable formal living room or parlor.
Court Style, Contemporary Flair
A formal living room with tall windows, high ceilings, parquet floors and decorative plasterwork are a stage setting for a mixture of European furnishings. Paint walls cool mint green with white trim and protect the windows using white silk curtains that are ceiling-to-floor. A French settee which may have graced a hall is covered in emerald velvet; the bergeres — French armchairs — are toned down with linen upholstery. Ornate side tables in the royals — real or reproduction Louise white and gilt tables hold a cut crystal bowl of a crystal table lamp and garden flowers. A soft coral overdyed rug or a sea grass rug that is very simple keeps the decor.
Mid-century Modern Classics
Good design is timeless and an official room can be a comfortable showcase for enduring design from midsize masters. Don’t heap on everything at once; complement a cherished find by Mies van der Rohe using a faux acrylic coffee table plus a reproduction Finn Juhl Poet sofa with hardwood legs and cream wool upholstery using cream tufted buttons of first caramel leather Barcelona chairs. Pull on the dialogue area with a walnut plus a dappled caramel-and-white cowhide area rug and brass George Nelson Spindle clock. Ivory matchstick ivory walls and blinds maintain the elegance inviting and light.
Attic Redux
Raid the attic for family heirlooms that update your living room that is formal that is contemporary. A patterned upholstered Chesterfield gets a new lease on life with back covers and cushion and a scattering of fabric accent pillows. The albatross of a mud-brown, java table that is exaggerated oozes charm after a light whitewash, bleaching and sanding. A bowl for ornamental gourds, fruit or seasonal cut flowers up it. The powder-blue velvet love seat that is nondescript is lovelier using a velvet cover of faded and desperate chartreuse velvet to extend the area, defined by a toast-colored Berber carpeting. Clean up the leather Moroccan poufs from the travels of a relative and enjoy their leather patterns and a few more parking spaces for guests on your salvaged parlor.
Orient Express
Paint the creamy gold and glaze the ceiling chocolate to match the plank floor that is dark. Build a summer palace of antiques and furnishings on your transformed living room. An elm altar table from one wall carries a cinnabar- woven wedding basket and a carved Guan Yin statue. Over the table, a ceiling-high row of gallery spotlights highlights framed segments of a display that was Chinese. The tableau is as attention grabbing as an elaborate fireplace however, the layout is simpler. Mix contemporary sofas in rich neutral tones with two or three carved antique chairs, each having a different color silk cushion — ruby, topaz and sapphire — and also a fan chair that was woven with chocolate detailing and a different gem-like cushion.