How to Accessorize a Living Room

Accessories complete a living room just as they do your wardrobe. Study the room and decide where it's crying out for the personal stamp that accessories will bring.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Area Rugs
• Curtains
• Flower Bouquets
• Houseplants
• Lamps
• Pictures
• Throw Pillows
• Throws
• Pictures

1. Study the window treatments. Change them if they're overly formal, overly casual or the wrong scale for your other furnishings. For instance, delicate lace curtains probably won't go with a massive leather tuxedo sofa.

2. Evaluate your lamps and add to them as needed. Most seating should have lighting accessible from either a table lamp or a ceiling fixture.

3. Examine your pictures. Hang them low enough over the furnishings that the furniture and the picture can be viewed as a decorating unit. Bigger is usually better with framed pictures.

4. Minimize clutter unless you have Victorian decor, which glories in bric-a-brac. This will cut down on your dusting, too.

5. Use an area rug to define a conversation area within the context of a large living room. Angle the rug for extra decorating drama.

6. Add pillows and/or a throw - chenille is cozy in winter - to the sofa unless you're going for the ultimate in minimalist decor.

7. Introduce a bit of nature with a flower arrangement or houseplants.

Tips & Warnings

• Rotate your pictures and other accessories to give the living room a fresh look.

on 8/8/2006 Take a 3 tiered hanging basket and line it (if it has holes). Fill it with cactus soil and plant cacti in each one. Hang the basket somewhere where the cacti will get a lot of sun.

on 11/22/2005 Cluster small and medium framed pictures together. Stagger the arrangement onto a small wall, to make it more obvious. This will work best with similar pictures, or like-colored frames.

on 11/22/2005 Remember to keep a coffee table or corner table within reach of every seating space because guests will want some place to keep glasses. If you are finicky, keep decorative coasters at hand.

on 11/22/2005 Just tossing your books onto shelves looks cluttered and ugly. Instead, select your nicest, leather-bound books, and arrange them nicely according to height. A bookcase looks great when it's small clusters of a few books, then an ornament, then some more books, then an (un-lit) candle.
--- Heather