Design Ideas for an English Living Room Interior
An English style living room design can be inspired by a specific time period in history, or it can draw together elements from several periods for a homey, creative interior look that expresses your personal interpretation of style. The most popular English interior design style is English country, a comfortable, lived-in style. But there are other English styles that can give your living room a more elegant, classic look, such as Tudor or Victorian. Does this Spark an idea?
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Choosing a Style
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One interior design maxim is to make the interior of your house match the exterior; for instance, if you have a cozy one-story bungalow, a country cottage style may flatter your house's design, with wallpaper, floral accents and overstuffed wooden furniture. If you have a rambling old Victorian home, design your rooms in a period style, highly ornamental, with a dark color palette. A half-timbered Tudor home is a perfect house for wood-paneled rooms, heavy wood furniture, stained-glass windows and damask or brocade fabrics. Colonial-era houses provide a chance to combine English and early American styles in one setting. Of course, matching your home's exterior is not always possible or desirable, but whichever style you pick, make sure it is attractive to you and your family.
Setting Priorities
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Is it most important to you that your home be authentically furnished in your chosen style, down to every detail? Or will you adapt a traditional English style to your own, mixing in other elements? If cost is a priority, feel free to shop at superstores for room accents and pieces in your style. If you want all antiques in your room, try estate auctions and antique stores. If you want to have a well-used family room, emphasize comfort and sturdy, long-wearing fabrics.
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Keeping Costs Low
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You can adapt what you already have for your English living room by recovering, restaining or reupholstering furniture, and repainting walls, ceilings and floors to a new color scheme. By buying only one or two highly styled items, you will give your room the look you want without the huge design budget. For instance, with a Victorian living room, you might buy only an authentic, ornately carved sofa at an auction, and add a pair of lower-quality reproduction Victorian end tables. The rest of the effect can be achieved by repainting the room in dark colors such as deep red or hunter green, draping other furniture in rich-looking, heavy fabrics, and adding small ornaments to the room. An English country style also is easily adapted to your existing furniture. Staining or painting the floors a dark color such as brown or red, recovering cushions and hanging drapes in a floral or plant-inspired pattern, and investing in just one leather chair or loveseat brings you very close to a classic English style. And, if you can afford it, a fireplace makes any room more English, whether fully functional, gas-lit with artificial logs or purely decorative.
Make It Your Own
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Add your favorite paintings, your mother's china hutch, your knickknacks from college and photos of your family. English styles are based on living in a room, not devoting every detail of a room's design to precise requirements. Actual English homes are usually a mix of several generations, additions and styles. If you prefer light-colored floors and walls, use other elements of English design to create your living room in your chosen style. If you dislike florals, use small geometric patterns for a similar effect. Remember, the original phrase was "An Englishman's home is his castle."
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