Introducing the final, and what I think will be the most spectacular, space of our White & Light Home today… our modern tropical living room. We thought natural materials and greens would work perfectly with the light and airy look of this home. The idea was to use materials such as cane, jute and wood with the sleek, straight lines and comfort of modern furniture. And that is how we decided to go with a modern tropical living room.

The Plan:

The living and dining area is a grand space with an entrance passage leading into it and another passage on the inside, out of it and into the bedrooms. An entire wall of floor to ceiling glass sliding doors ensures a whole lot of natural light and makes our hall look large and airy.

Opposite the sliding doors is a long wall which continues right into the passage. We spent a lot of time thinking about what we’re going to do with that single, long wall. We had to leave an aisle like area along it to allow for entrance into the bedrooms. I was concerned that standing at one end of the living room and looking straight down into the passage would be like standing at one end of a train compartment looking along the aisle right down to the other end.

The sideboard shown above was not part of the original plan. Till we saw this absolutely gorgeous piece that the clients fell in love with instantly. Since the rest of our layout was finalised the only place we could use it was against this wall and everything fell into place perfectly. It gives a visual break to both the wall and the passage and truly is a stunning piece of furniture (which I can’t wait to show you).

The Foyer:

This is where we enter the home, and though the foyer is only a short passage we wanted it to make the right first impression.

The homeowners were keen on using the floor to make an impact here and so we decided to go in for a simple but striking inlay. Since we are using black predominantly as an accent through the home, we thought we’d use it on the floor too.

This simple geometric inlay pattern instantly caught our eye.

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We also have this little niche right at the entrance. It will fit in only a really narrow unit, but this too must be high impact.

We’re thinking a black, mirror fronted cabinet would work well here. The black to go with the black floor inlay and the mirror to add width to the narrow passage. A mirror panel on top will take care of concealing the electrical boxes.

The Living Area:

The TV wall dominates our living area. The thing with large, unending spaces, is that they are surrounded by long, unending walls. That TV wall, for instance, continues out along the passage right up to the entrance door.

We need a large TV unit, proportional to this large wall, and also to  house all the electronic gadgets and systems required for this living room.

I loved this beautiful unit I saw on Pinterest. I love how it spreads right across that wall in its very simple design form. The vertical panel is also a great way to separate the passage length of the wall from the living room.

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The Dining Area:

Right opposite our TV wall is our dining wall. As you can see in the plan, we’re cutting through a part of the wall and taking up a part of the wardrobe space from the room behind it. Our bar will fit in flush along the wall from this side and go into the wardrobe on the other.

The dining bench comes along the wall to make a cozy dining area on that side.

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The Balcony:

The balcony, though really long, is also quite narrow. Which means we can’t use the entire length as one whole space. Imagine trying to have a conversation from one end to the other! The plan is to divide it into smaller areas of seating.

One great option is a bar counter along the railing. This allows us to use the length to our advantage and minimise the disadvantage of the lack of width.

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We could probably also fit in a cozy seating for two on one side.

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Pockets of green all along should complete the look.

A Modern Tropical Living Room:

Once the where and what is decided, what’s left is the how. And after seeing this pic we had no doubt what look we wanted to create.

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We loved how raw accents of cane and wood warmed up any all white space.

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We realised we could stick to our all neutral look on the furniture and allow all the textures to add the interest.

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Simple, clean lines of the larger pieces work really well with all the texture on the smaller ones, so we wouldn’t have to compromise on comfort.

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And so we decided that our living room was going to have simple, comfortable, modern pieces of furniture coupled with raw, rustic accents to give us our modern tropical living room.

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As I introduce this last space from our White & Light Home today, we’ve begun to wrap up and put finishing touches on this home. Everything we’ve visualised and worked on over the last few (or many!) months is gradually becoming a reality and I can’t wait to share it all with you very soon. Remember to sign up for updates so you don’t miss any of it.

Do write in with comments and questions below.. I’d love to hear what you think of our plans for this home.

Until next time,