Set accents: Wallpaper ideas for your living room
The living room is the place where the family gathers and you invite friends to your cosy get-together. Therefore, the wall design of the living room is particularly important, as it is the room where life takes place at home. Wallpapers have experienced an incredible revival and quite rightly so. In this magazine article, we provide you with practical ideas and suggestions on how to give your living room an extraordinary effect by choosing the perfect wallpaper.
Table of contents
Find the right wallpaper for the desired effect
Inexpensive and with little effort, wallpapers give every room a completely new feeling of space and underline your furnishing style – whether modern, elegant or unusual, you decide what effect the wall design with a wallpaper should have. We have compiled ideas for wallpaper and its effect in the living room for you.
Elegant wallpaper for the living room
To bring elegance to your living room, go for an elegant wall design with wallpaper in addition to the usual furniture and decorative elements: The colours gold and silver in interplay with blue, green and black dominate the selection of wallpapers that provide the icing on the cake of a chic interior. In addition to the colour, the material and appearance of the wallpaper also play an important role: metallic foil or glass beads create shiny effects on the wall and reflect the light in a magical way. In terms of motifs, wallpapers with ornaments, marble designs or in the Natural Opulence style exude elegance in particular.
Unpretentious and powerful at the same time: KunstLoft offers you a selected range of wallpapers with these characteristics, thanks to which you can achieve an elegant look in your living room.
Modern wallpaper for the living room
Geometric shapes on wallpaper are an absolute classic when it comes to modernly designed living rooms. Depending on the size of the geometric pattern and the colour choice of the wallpaper, they transport liveliness or calm and harmony into your living room. Neutral, muted shades and calm lines allow the mind to calm down and an oasis of relaxation is created in your living room. Wallpapers with intense colours and striking shapes, on the other hand, enliven the mind and your living room becomes a place for social gatherings.
Nature motifs also manifest a modern interior style. Since these motifs are often very detailed, they can be used to create an accent wall that catches everyone’s eye. If you use these eye-catching pattern wallpapers on too large an area, the living room will quickly look cramped, so choose your wall conscientiously. At KunstLoft, you’ll find a curated selection of popular motifs for a modernly designed living room:
- Jungle,
- Mountain landscapes,
- Forests or
- Plants in close-up.
Wallpapers for the country house style
In the countryside, you leave the chichi of the city behind and enjoy the natural and uncomplicated. You can realise this feeling in your living room by designing your walls with country style wallpaper – no matter where your home is located. Particularly popular are wallpapers in wood or stone look, which give the room a rustic cosiness. Colours from nature support this feeling, resulting in further matching motifs: Flower and plant patterns in Shabby Chic or nature wallpapers with motifs of the sea or landscapes. With a wall design that thematically picks up on life in the country, you can bring the country house style to life in your living room. When choosing wallpaper colours, it is best to go for natural tones such as beige, green and brown.
How to create the perfect setting with wallpaper
What should be considered when choosing the colour of the wallpaper?
Of course, your own taste comes first. Nevertheless, we have some tips for you regarding the choice of wallpaper colour for your living room:
- The colours of the wallpaper should harmonise with those of the furniture pieces so that the result is a coherent overall picture.
- Colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel go well together: for example, green and yellow, blue and green, orange and red.
- Complementary colours, on the other hand, provide strong contrasts. You can make use of these if you want to create a real eye-catcher in your living room with the wall design.
- Colours create atmosphere, so think carefully about what kind of room mood you want the wallpaper to create.
- You can set natural colour accents with wallpapers in green, beige or grey, whereas wallpapers in red, orange or yellow stand out and make the living room look lively.
- Dark colours visually fill a room, which is why the room should be large enough to “tolerate” wallpaper in black or dark shades of brown, green and blue.
Motif: eye-catching or rather discreet?
Striking
If you have an artistic wallpaper as a wall covering in your living room, you don’t need any other works of art! Eye-catching motifs are the perfect eye-catchers, deliberately drawing the focus of the room to the wall on which the wallpaper is hanging. You can liven up your living room with patterned wallpapers, but since they are very engaging, it is better not to use them all over the room, but to accentuate only one wall, for example. A highlight among the extravagant wallpapers from KunstLoft are those with a 3D effect, because their optical illusion and depth effect will never cease to amaze you in your living room.
Our tip: Avoid combining fancy wallpapers with bare or white walls. The resulting contrast is too harsh and disturbs the harmony in the living room.
Discreet
If you prefer to decorate the walls of your living room with wallpaper instead of an accent wall, it is better to choose a wallpaper with a discreet look. With straight motifs, calm patterns, accurate stripes and neutral colours, you can decorate the entire room without overloading it. Wallpapers with a natural look, such as wood or stone, can also be used on a large scale. However, discreet wallpaper motifs also unfold their calming effect in a small space, so don’t worry: you don’t have to wallpaper the entire living room to enjoy the decorative effect of the wallpaper – a wallpaper with a discreet motif is also perceived as an accent.
Which material is the right one?
Wallpapers come in all kinds of materials and designs:
- Non-woven wallpaper
- Paper wallpapers
- Vinyl wallpaper
- and much more.
Each has its advantages, some also certain disadvantages. The most important thing to mention here is the varying degree of difficulty in applying the wallpaper to the wall. If you are still unsure about the choice of material for the wallpaper in your living room, the KunstLoft wallpaper knowledge page offers you a detailed comparison of the different wallpapers so that you can make an informed decision.
Ideas & Tips for placing wallpaper
As a rule of thumb, the more “space” you give a wallpaper, the more it can unfold its effect.
On which wall does a wallpaper fit?
To set the scene perfectly for the selected wallpaper, choose a wall in your living room that is not covered at all or only slightly by cupboards, shelves or other high pieces of furniture. The more space the wallpaper has, the better!
Accentuate or wallpaper the entire wall?
If you want to set accents in the design of your living room, wallpapers with very eye-catching patterns or striking colours are ideal. While used on a small scale, they are a real highlight in the furnishings, they would appear too dominant if used on a large scale in the room. Borders are also ideal for setting accents. If, on the other hand, you want to wallpaper an entire wall, you should choose plain wallpaper or calm and discreet motifs. These make the living room homely without overloading it.
How to combine wallpapers with each other?
Combining different wallpapers is an excellent idea depending on the layout of the rooms and the desired effect. We give you tips on which designs can be best combined with each other and the effect you can achieve in your living room.
Rustic "Material" Mix
Wallpapers with the “natural” look of stone, wood or concrete already create the impression individually that the walls in your living room are made of real stone or wood. You can make targeted use of this amazing similarity by combining a stone wallpaper with a concrete wallpaper, for example, and rounding off this rustic wall design with wooden furniture. At KunstLoft you can get all the components of this interior design style directly.
Monotonous was yesterday
Prove that you are a master of accents and skilfully set the scene in your living room with plain wallpaper in combination with patterned wallpaper. So that the pattern does not overpower the monochrome, wallpaper opposite walls with this mix: behind the TV, apply the plain wallpaper and on the other side behind the sofa, you can dare to use an extravagant pattern.
Courage to combine patterns
Patterns that pick up on each other in reversed form work particularly impressively together. But wallpapers with different patterns but from the same colour family also achieve a harmonious and at the same time exciting effect in your living room.
Optical room separation
Different wallpapers allow you, for example, to visually separate an open living and dining area. Since the areas still belong to each other, however, make sure that the effect of the wallpapers does not compete with each other, but that they fit together harmoniously.
Found the perfect wallpaper - and then?
Picture credits : all pictures: © KunstLoft