Sprucing Up These Living Room Walls

These living room tall walls need some help. The homeowner likes the idea of drapery on the windows but is afraid they will cover up the light too much. I think I can make some recommendations here that will help give them some direction.

First, let’s see a few more pics.

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Living room sofa wall

Entry Hall

Let’s talk about the sofa wall first.

You don’t have to address all of the wall with an especially tall ceiling. As long as it feels scaled appropriately with the furniture, you can kind of ignore some of the extra height.

I would definitely lower that art that is there on the wall now. It needs to “marry”, visually, with the sofa.

I don’t live by the rule of all art being at eye level at all. Instead, I feel like art placed above furniture should tie to that piece below it. Usually I space it around 8”-9” above, but it depends if objects will be on top of a chest or something like that. Here, about 10” of wall space showing above the sofa is good. Then, the art.

I think we need a little attention to the color scheme here, before I share my art recommendations.

The sofas are very dark and dominating and have a lot of red in them. Because of that, I think we should lean into a warm palette of terracotta, blush and the burgandy. Some warm beige would work mixed in there too.

I saw this painting and it really embodies the color palette I like for this space, using the leather sofa. It makes that sofa feel more up to date to me.

This piece was only 36” wide, so it was a little small, and I didn’t prefer the vertical orientation here. I think anything added into this room, however, can follow this kind of color direction.

The art I did like was this piece, it is a bit bigger and a horizontal orientation. It really establishes a more modern look when paired with the leather sofa.

Next, I would consider replacing the leather love seat with two fabric covered chairs. I like one leather piece in a room, but I don’t prefer a sofa/loveseat set. It just presents a very masculine look.

Instead, I would use some upholstered chairs like these against the window.

I like draperies on the windows, because they can extend the height of the windows by mounting them higher than the top of the arch. I wouldn’t want to mount them all the up to the ceiling, as there would be such a huge gap in between. I mention in this post, that there is such an idea as having drapery mounted too high.

In this situation, I like them about 18” - 22” above the top of the arch. I like the idea of three panels. They will add some color and contrast here and warm up the look of this room.

I did some new pillows in our color scheme too and a pretty rug. I love a chunkier lamp on a table there in the corner, like this one.

Here is the whole space, with the drapery, art and chairs.

At the entry, a mirror is desired to reflect some of the light from the windows.

I think this mirror would be nice on that angled wall in the entry. It is 28” wide and I like how it looks like a window.

This addresses three walls in this living room. I hope it helps give the homeowner some ideas about window treatments and decor. :-)

It has been a hard week here for the Houston area. We have our power back, but so many still don’t, unfortunately. Many had trees fall on their houses too. We have some huge pine trees, being here in the piney woods of Texas.

Hoping that power is restored to everyone soon.

Here are a few links to these recent Q&A’s, in case you missed a few!

This blogpost was thoughtfully written by me, Carla Aston, and not by AI, ghostwriters, or guest posters.