Simple Interior Concepts: 7 Ways to Change Your Living Room from Drab to Uplifting

Are you fed up with your dreary and lacklustre living room?

Would you like to upgrade the space but have a tight, almost non-existent budget?

Are you looking all around the room, and its decor seems dated? Perhaps it looked great a decade ago, but not anymore.

If you feel this way about your living room, it is time to liven it up and turn it into an uplifting space. There are a few simple and budget-friendly ideas here you can do that will turn it into an attractive and spirit-lifting space.

Budget-Friendly Ways to Upgrade

There are various ways to upgrade an existing space without throwing some stuff away and replacing them with brand-new products. You can:

Add new features.
Refurbish old furniture.
Change the colour of the walls.
Remove things that add no aesthetic value to the room.
Create a focal point in the room.

Enhance and transform your living room using any of the following affordable concepts as ideas and inspiration:

1 Indoor Water Features

Add an indoor water feature. Watching water flow is beautiful and enthralling. There are elaborate tabletop water features that look lovely on a coffee table. Wall waterfall features are dramatic and captivating and will make bold statements as a focal point in the living area. It will appear as a wall of cascading water.

A standalone floor waterfall feature is best placed as a zone divider, surrounded by furniture and furnishings. Make it a focal point for the living room.

2 Throw Pillows

Liven up your plain old sofa with brightly coloured throw pillows (or scatter cushions). Choose perky catchy colours like fuchsia, turquoise, orange, mustard, sunny yellow, lime, etc. You can use a mix of any of these colours as long as they complement the sofa’s upholstery fabric.

Use different sizes; a mix of small, medium and large. If your sofa fabric is plain (one colour), add boldly patterned pillows and some texture. For a patterned sofa, pillows with different and bright colours are best.

3 Create a Gallery Wall

Creating a gallery wall as a focal point is a great way to update a living room inexpensively. Turn a blank wall into a thing of beauty and give the room a much-needed personality.

Find and use a collection of anything from family photos to textile prints, vintage record jackets, geometric art, sepia, and black and white prints, pieces of wallpaper, etc. Make it a cluster of different shapes and sizes.

Frame them with black, white, or coloured frames, and arrange them on the wall symmetrically. Asymmetrical arrangements are a bit tricky (and look messy) to arrange.

A gallery of framed pictures and illustrations
(Image used under license from 123rf.com)

4 Wall Decals and Stickers

This is one of the cheapest ways to transform any room. Wall decals can significantly alter the look of drab spaces. There are thousands of themes to choose from. Huge quotes that span a wall. Picturesque scenes. Skyscapes. All-glass penthouses. Exotic beaches. Ski resorts. Villas. The countryside. Forests. Abstracts and geometrics. The choice is endless.

Wall decal stickers are just the right decorations to turn your living room into an exciting space.

Wall decals can transform your interior

5 Upgrade Old Furniture Finds

Visit estate, garden, or garage sales. You will find old but unusual pieces of furniture like antique tables and chairs, floor and table lamps, period cabinets, end tables, tapestry, corner units, etc. If you are a hands-on individual, repair and upgrade them. Spray paint or lacquer them to a high sheen. Add stylish twists to a few to make them complement other furniture and furnishings in the space.

Add them to your living room décor and create an eclectic theme. It will add a new, stylish dimension to your living room.

6 Renovate your Tall Bookcases

If you have a bookcase in your living room, you can jazz it up and turn it into an artsy piece of furniture. Line it inside and out with hand-painted wallpaper, chequered wall fabrics, mirror tiles, or even stick-on decals. You can turn it into a display unit by removing some middle shelves to create space to showcase tall glassware, glass bowls filled with seashells, a plant terrarium, ceramicware, sculpture, a collection of mementoes, and elaborate metal artwork.

Regularly switch around your displayed pieces.

7 Global Design

Global design is a trending look that features a collection of all your mementoes, collectables, art, pottery, etc, collected over the years.

Display pieces may include things you have collected from travels and tours, including items acquired through inheritance like book collections, vintage magazines, framed photographs, earthenware, and framed art.

Arrange them on a low but sizeable surface or coffee table, on a strategically placed bookshelf (without the books), or on a purpose-built display stand.

Finally, you can give your living room a new look within hours or a few days. Cheaply and affordably. If you can implement at least a couple of the living room upgrade ideas above, you will succeed in changing your living area from dreary to cheery.

7 Ways to Change Your Living Room from Drab to Uplifting