Our boho living room makeover started with a very simple brief. ‘We want it brighter‘. The clients had redone their home not too long ago, so the essentials were mostly in place. Yet, when you walk into the living room, it looks all grey and very dull. What this space needs is a little ‘bright’, a bit of ‘light’ and a whole lot of life breathed into it.
Boho Living Room Makeover:
My first ‘homework’ assignment for any client is always to find me one picture that symbolises what kind of space they are looking for. A picture speaks a thousand words, and I have always found it the easiest way to understand what they have in mind. After all, the idea is for each client to have their dream home, instead of each of them having mine!
After exchanging a few pics, she said this is the one that truly makes her happy.
Honestly, I don’t know who was happier. If this was the look I was aiming to achieve, I couldn’t wait to start!
The Plan:
But I do always tend to get carried away with the ‘look’. Let’s start with the plan first.
Though the bedrooms have built in furniture which they don’t want to redo, the clients are willing to change the furniture in the living room. They realise the existing furniture is too big for the space and sleeker furniture would fit in much better here.
The Living Area:
What you first need in a living room is enough seating to be able to get together with family and friends. Since this is a small space, fitting in a lot of furniture would be difficult unless we mix it up.
This is their existing set up. As you enter the home a large 3 seater sofa blocks the living area from the entrance and makes a narrow aisle along the entrance wall.
We plan to open this up by keeping a smaller accent chair and a stool or pouffe on this side. This will make the living area look more open and spacious.
The window seat is already there and provides additional seating on that side. While the ottomon against the wall is a lighter piece of furniture, it doesn’t provide adequate seating and looks a bit out of place there.
We decided to go with a sofa where the existing sofa is.. I do think every living room must have at least one soft, comfortable sofa… and a chaise in place of the ottoman. Two full sofas opposite each other will completely cramp up the space. But a chaise will be much lighter and provide seating without filling up the entire room.
The Dining Area:
As you can see, the existing dining table has been pushed into the corner because, well, that’s where it doesn’t get in the way.
Instead of getting a regular dining table and pushing it into the corner, why not plan a corner dining table instead?
So that is what we’ve planned. Run the bench in an ‘L’ shape along two sides with dining chairs on the other two.
The window above the dining table is not really a window. It opens into a duct. It’s only purpose is to allow the AC service guys to get into and out of the duct. So instead of covering it with a drape, we’ll give it a shutter and finish it off to look one with the wall.
The Look:
This large sofa will not be blocking the entrance any more and making a narrow aisle. This allows us to use the wall behind it. We’re thinking of placing a console there. This will be useful to keep the phone, keys and the little things you need as you walk in and out of the home.
They have this beautiful mirror…
… which we think will look great above the console. A mirror near the door is also great to give yourself a once-over while leaving the home.
That leaves the niche running from behind the console to right around the dining table. We’re thinking of using a light patterned wallpaper there to make our boho living room. One option is brick, since that was a predominant part of our client’s inspiration pic. But our dining is a dark, windowless corner, so we’d prefer white brick to keep it looking light.
Another option is a light pattern which will add some interest to the wall.
We do want to hang artwork on the walls here, so the pattern can’t be too heavy.
Artwork along the ‘L’ of the bench should complete that corner well.
The Colours:
We have picked up the pink and blue from our first inspiration pic as our main colours of this boho living room. But while predominantly dark colours work in that space because of its large windows, our space needs to be lighter.
So though we do have some darker pieces of furniture, we’ll use lighter colours on the walls and larger pieces.
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Most of our selections for this room are done and work is well underway. I’m quite excited to see the end result myself. Remember to sign up for updates so that you don’t miss it!
Would love to hear your suggestions and comments, so do write in below.
(This room is now ready. You can click here to see how it turned out!)
Until next time,
