The contemporary-style sitting room is for all those house owners who have a leaning towards minimalism, modern art, and eco-awareness. Gharpedia shares fifteen essential components of a contemporary-style sitting room.
Contemporary-Style Living Room Ideas
Well, a more open-plan style of living has filtered down from Manhattan lofts, while the rediscovery of 1960s high-rise apartments has found its way into everyday decorating. It is also true that we may not always aspire to live in converted warehouses, but we can appreciate the clarity of an uncluttered space furnished with a few interesting pieces.
Contemporary style promotes minimalism and keeping things in their proper place. Before going into detail, let us know a few tricks to make our living room contemporary.
How about trying glass bricks that let light filter through to create an airy feel? With sheepskin rugs on hard floors, huge sofas, low tables, and lighting directed towards the seating and decorative objects, comfort zones can be defined more clearly than ever. The trick is to keep colours muted and natural for an airy feel and produce them by masking off and painting blocks of colour to break up the wall space. You could also add some contemporary art. This can be anything from an abstract painting to a large rock, a weather-beaten tree trunk, or a large desert cactus. Just do it with a great deal of confidence and achieve a contemporary-style living room.
Fifteen Firm Ways To Give Yourself Contemporary-Style Living Room
Below is a list of the components of a contemporary-style sitting room:
- Floating Wooden Floor for Contemporary Living Room
- Glass Shelving and Wooden Storage Cubes in Contemporary Living Room
- Contemporary-Style Promotes Eco-Friendly Materials
- Contemporary-Style Rugs and Fabrics
- Contemporary-Style Blinds or Sheer Curtains
- Contemporary Coffee Table
- Bring in Contemporary-Style Furniture with Leather Cushions, Armchairs or Cube
- Contemporary-Style Living Room must have Lamps and Candles
- Contemporary-Style Furniture: Large, Plain-Coloured Sofa
- Soft, Folded Pashmina-style Throws for Contemporary Décor
- Contemporary Minimalist Living Room
- CD Storage Unit in Contemporary Living Room
- Magazine Rack for Contemporary-Style Sitting Room
- Storage Space Down Under
- Contemporary Wall Shelving Units with Doors and Drawers
01. Floating Wooden Floor for Contemporary Living Room
The new wooden floor looks different from stripped pine floorboards; the wood stripes are narrower, and the boards are butted up, leaving no gaps. The design principle is the same for most brands of strip flooring, although quality and price vary quite a lot. Tongue-and-groove boards are laminated with a veneer of real timber and are laid on top of existing-level flooring. This sort of flooring has the look and feel of wood but is laid with the convenience of vinyl. For maintaining the wooden floor, keep protective covers below the furniture.
02. Glass Shelving and Wooden Storage Cubes in Contemporary Living Room
Glass is a strong, natural material and an essential ingredient in contemporary style. An alcove fitted with toughened glass shelves looks superb and can be used to display anything from a row of pebbles to a collection of magazines, but you will need to consider fitting concealed lighting as well. It’s only when glass and light are combined that the setting gives its full effect. Use frosted glass or glass bricks as screening between rooms to create a barrier without losing the sense of space.
03. Contemporary-Style Promotes Eco-Friendly Materials
Caring about the environment means being choosy about the materials with which you decorate your home. So many chemicals infect the air of the home these days, all in the name of treating mould, bacteria, stains and good old wear and tear. If you want a more natural environment, there are organic and eco-friendly paint ranges, carpets, fabrics and cleaning materials. They will do you no harm and may prevent allergies as well. Select the colour scheme that will give your home contemporary style décor.
04. Contemporary-Style Rugs and Fabrics
Hard wooden floors give a fabulous look, but they need to be comfortable too, especially when walking barefoot. Rugs have made a comeback recently, and all fashionable furniture outlets have ranges of colourful or neutral, designer contemporary-style rugs, ethnic kilims, natural matting and soft sheepskins. Rugs can be used to define a seating or eating area in an open-plan living room. Spend as much as you can on them and make a real feature of them by putting them on show. Felt, wool, mohair and rough-weave cotton are the key fabrics to use. However, it is important to clean rugs regularly to keep them in good shape.
05. Contemporary-Style Blinds or Sheer Curtains
Flounces or frills are out, so fit wooden Venetian or handmade paper blinds; or hang plain, tab-top curtains from a pole for contemporary style. King-sized, white Egyptian cotton sheets look stunning clipped onto a rail; or to inject some spicy colours, drape sari fabrics or hand-blocked Japanese textiles from a curtain pole. Vintage patterned fabrics and brocades combined with plain bands of colour are also chic.
06. Contemporary Coffee Table
A long, low coffee table looks great, provided it is not piled with clutter. Favourite styles also include designs with storage space beneath the tabletop. Chrome or aluminium legs with 1970s-style rosewood laminates, tubular chrome and glass, pale wood with industrial-size castors, and roughly hewn African dark wood versions are all considered to be extremely cool.
07. Bring in Contemporary-Style Furniture with Leather Armchair or Cube
Classic leather and chrome chairs such as the Barcelona and Wassily chairs were designed in the first half of the last century, and although they have been copied, they have never been bettered. If your budget does not allow for a designer chair, a leather cube or even a cushion will show that you are on the right track.
08. Contemporary-Style Living Room must have Lamps and Candles
Table lamps need to be quite large. Think of large, organic-shaped ceramic or wooden table lamps with plain, cream shades or tall and simple metal standard lamps. High-tech tracked spotlighting systems are also fine for illuminating CD collections or books. Large multi-wick candles or tea lights in a row of matching glasses are also good for creating a contemporary-style sitting room.
09. Contemporary-Style Furniture: Large, Plain-Coloured Sofa
Big, plain-coloured sofas are very much part of the contemporary style sitting room. The most stylish sofas have a boxy shape, with ultra-generous seating and short legs. These sofas are made for putting your feet up and relaxing. Comfort is an essential part of this fashionable minimalism.
10. Soft, Folded Pashmina-style Throws for Contemporary Décor
The other concession to comfort comes from being able to drape your furniture and yourself in beautiful, soft woollen throws. Fold them over the arms of chairs or the back of the sofa and use them as comforters on cool nights. Pashmina shawls are the best, but anything from a fringed cot blanket or mohair stole to a plaid travel rug will work if the colours are right.
11. Contemporary Minimalist Living Room
The word ‘de-clutter’ may not be in the dictionary, but everyone knows what it means! In the bygone era, it used to be called being neat or putting things away, but now we call it ‘de-cluttering.’ There are shops, catalogues, consultants and entire books dedicated to the art of tidying up your home. If you have a lot of money, you can hire someone to come around and tell you to throw out most of your stuff and put the rest in labelled boxes for hourly charges. Read on to learn some DIY ideas on the same …
12. CD Storage Unit in Contemporary Living Room
Buying a wall-mounted CD storage unit to free up space that is currently being used to hold your CD collection. Make sure you buy one with more space than you need so that you can edit the collection as new CDs are added.
13. Magazine Rack for Contemporary-Style Sitting Room
A Perspex or bent beech wood magazine rack will look perfect to keep magazines and colour supplements neat. Keep only the current editions in your rack and store backdated issues on a bookshelf in magazine box files.
14. Contemporary-Style Low Table with Storage Space
One of the best contemporary-style sitting room ideas is to choose a low table with compartments or drawers and stand lamps on cubes or drums that can also be used to hide clutter. This works only if you go through it regularly and sort things out!
15. Contemporary Wall Shelving Units with Doors and Drawers
If there is one good lesson to be learned from minimalism, it is that not everything is worth displaying. Choose a few decorative objects for open, glass shelves and keep the rest behind closed doors.
Points to Remember While Choosing the Components of a Contemporary Style Sitting Room
- Muted, natural colours help the contemporary style by giving it an airy feel. Soft throws folded over the backs of sofas add to the style.
- Wooden floors are a must in any contemporary sitting room, but new floating wooden floors make it easier than ever before to create this look.
- If you have the space, over-sized, dramatic houseplants will add an organic feel to your contemporary sitting room without making it seem cluttered.
Conclusively, the contemporary style sitting room is clutter-free, which requires a little day-to-day discipline of putting things away behind closed doors.
Now that you know all the components of a contemporary-style sitting room, you might also love to know more about contemporary interior design style. Read our blog on the same.
Contemporary Interior Design Style: A Guide to Decorate Your Home!
Author Bio
Huta Raval – An English Literature and Journalism Topper, Huta Raval has graduated from the L D Arts College, Ahmedabad. Post serving for 23 years in the NBFC and Public Library Sectors her desire for ‘writing the unwritten’ brought her to the creative field of content writing. Her clientele comprises of NGOs, Blogging Platforms, Newspapers, Academic Institutions, et al.