Original article featured in Cambridgeshire Agenda July 2008. Photography courtesy of Graham and Green, Zimmer and Rohde, Lewis and Wood and Vanessa Arbuthnott.

A well-planned and invitingly decorated living room will quickly become the most used and best loved room in your house. Cate Burren looks at the things to consider when designing your living space. The design and layout of your living room may at first glance seem to be straightforward, revolving around the placement of furniture and the selection of wall colour and curtains, but with a little careful planning, you will find that much more can be made of this room than just a place for watching TV.

The first consideration is what the room is used for. This will depend somewhat on other rooms you have downstairs so it is worth looking at the use and layout of your living room with regard to other downstairs rooms. You are likely to use the room for relaxing, watching TV, chatting to family and friends, but you may also have a dining table in the room, a desk for working possibly with a computer, a piano or other musical uses and you may have some storage requirements in the room. Looking at the main uses and working out what is required for each will help you to get to the most suitable layout for the room. It is also worth thinking about how many people will use the room at one time and whether it is used by your children as a main space and what their requirements are in terms of playing with toys and so on.

When it comes to entertaining friends you will have times that you have many people to visit but remember that you don’t need to have seating for them all available when it’s just the family. If you imagine that you will have twelve people over Christmas but only really need seating for four on a regular basis, remember that chairs can be brought in from other rooms, large floor cushions can be used and an upholstered coffee table will easily seat two on special occasions. The flow of traffic round the room is also important. Even if there are no other doorways off the room (to a kitchen or conservatory for example), the considering the easy movement around the room will make the room work better and will feel more comfortable to be in.

Avoid if possible the desire to push all the furniture against the walls – pulling in your sofas towards the fireplace, TV etc. will not only create a cosier space but will also allow people to walk behind the sofa and may also create a space for storage or a desk. If you already have a fireplace in the room, think about positioning the TV to one side of it, which will allow you to group seating around the fireplace as the focal point and will also be a comfortable arrangement for watching TV.

Once you have a good layout in the room, the next important consideration is lighting. Good lighting will not only make your living room look better but it will also help to make it more usable. Start with looking at how much natural light you get during the day and assessing whether you will need to use artifical light to boost the daylight you get. Then you need to consider the types of light needed in the room.

You will want some general or background lighting which will give light to the whole room which may be ceiling lights or wall lights. You will also need some task lighting which may be a desk light, a reading light near a chair, a pendant light over a dining table or lamps in side tables. Visually it is best to have light sources at different heights in a room – for example a ceiling light and a table lamp – because this highlights different areas of the room and creates a sense of balance. The type of flooring that you select for your living room will have both a practical and aesthetic impact. The most likely choices are wooden flooring coupled with rugs for comfort and warmth or a good quality carpet. For both a wood or carpet option, there are endless choices that can give you anything from a modern contemporary feel or a traditional country look.

The look of your living room will be most influenced by the colours, fabrics and styles of furnishings that you pick. Start by finding your own style – look at things you have in other rooms that you like and look through magazines and books to find rooms that you particularly like. You also need to think about the style of the house so that the room you create will be sympathetic with the property, even if look you select is not the same period as the house. Put together a scheme for the room before you start, considering wall colours, fabrics, furnishings and accessories such as lamps, cushions, rugs and so on.

Once you feel happy with the scheme, start the work and reassess as you go along – its fine to make changes as you see things unfolding – try not to buy accessories until the more major items are in place as you may change your mind when you see how things look. Finally, try not to over co-ordinate. The room should look as though it is a comfortable evolution that reflects your taste and lifestyle and not as though the room as been strictly designed to every last detail, even if it has been!