Friday 5’s – How to make a large room feel cosy

Hi and Good Morning. It’s going to be a quick one today as the run up to Christmas is starting to get busy busy busy! The other day, I had some friends over to my little home and they commented on how they found it really difficult to make their large living room feel cosy and welcoming. It’s easy to fall into the trap of placing a couple of sofa’s against the walls and then having such a large gap in between that you end up shouting at each other from opposite ends of the room. So here are some tips on how to make a large room feel more cosy:

1. Use large items of furniture to take up the floor space and height of the room eg. oversized sofa, large wall cabinet, large lighting or chandelier
2. Paint the room a dark colour and keep the walls, frames, ceiling and if you can floor the same colour. Dark colours will always make a room appear smaller and more cosy.
3. Create zones within the room by using furniture ie one for conversation, one for reading etc. You can also use furniture as the physical divider of the room such as a shelf
4. Use large wall art or wallpaper to create a focal point to the room
5. Place furniture away from the walls rather than against. This helps to distract the eye away from the size of the space

The images below are from the blog of photographer Todd Selby from  The Selby. The images are of the home of famous Interior Designer Abigail Ahern. Having been lucky enough to attend one of her masterclasses earlier this year at her home, I was able to see it first hand. Her home is as beautiful as a work of art and she has integrated a lot of these tricks into her home as shown below. Do you have any tips you might like to share? What’s worked for you in the past?

Have a lovely weekend. xD