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Decorating long narrow rooms


Ideas for Decorating a Long and Narrow Living Room

By

Lauren Flanagan

Lauren Flanagan

Lauren Flanagan is an interior design expert with over 15 years of experience writing, editing, and producing articles for renowned Canadian publications and shows for HGTV on home decor. She worked in high-end home decor retail before discovering her passion was to share what she knew in publications and on television.

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Updated on 12/10/21

The Spruce / Alyssa Vela

If your living room looks like a long hallway, use a few clever illusions to open up the space so you don't feel like you're living in a bowling alley. You may be tempted to push furniture up against the walls in a long, narrow living room to open up the space, but the effect will only highlight the shape of the room, making it feel longer and narrower. Minimize tunnel vision in your home with ideas to manipulate the space.

Watch Now: 5 Clever Tips for Decorating a Narrow Living Room

Form a Straight Walkway

Creating a pathway for foot traffic in a narrow room is tricky. By tweaking your arrangement, you'll create an intimate atmosphere instead of an awkward footpath through the middle of your furniture. Arrange a seating vignette on one side of the long wall of your living room. For example, place a sofa up against one wall and pull close two chairs that face the couch. By creating a small seating area, you've created a clear path behind the chairs on the opposite long wall of the space. The effect is a well thought out sitting area that isn't interrupted by foot traffic.

Create a Curved Pathway

Break up a lengthy space by creating a curved path through the room. Achieve this visual trickery by using both long walls for your furniture and dividing your space into two separate seating zones. You can quickly sketch this out for yourself or use a free room planning app so you can see the curvy pathway on paper. For example, here are two zones that create a curved flow in a long, narrow living room.

As a result, you've broken up the tunnel feeling of the room, maximized the space with two zones, and created an easy flow throughout the living room.

The Spruce / Alyssa Vela

Pull Furniture Away From the Walls

Furniture pushed up against a wall in a narrow living room emphasizes the length of the space. Instead, pull all of your furniture away from the walls and float a seating arrangement in the middle of the room. It helps even if your furniture is only a few inches away from the walls. The result will be a cozy seating area with two narrow walkways on either side of the sitting area.

Use Circular Pieces

Eliminate long horizontal lines with furniture that has soft, rounded edges. There are several easy ways to break up an abundance of straight horizontal lines.

Tip

Along with round furniture, consider upholstery with circular patterns and use round area rugs that call the eye to the floor.

The Spruce / Alyssa Vela

Create an L- or U-Shape Seating Area

Place a sofa on the wall and put a love seat or two chairs perpendicular to the couch to break up the length of the room. Add another love seat or set of chairs on the opposite side of the sofa to create a U-shape seating arrangement. It's another way to create a path along the opposite long wall of your room.

Divide the Space

If your room is particularly long, divide it into two separate zones. Consider two different conversation areas. A seating area and a small office or dining area is another option to make the most of the space. Use area rugs to define each area. Help the two spaces appear organized and orderly by placing all of the legs of each piece of furniture on the rugs.

Tip

Consider creating two zones in a long, narrow living room by using one piece of furniture. Place a sofa perpendicular in the room and put a console table or short cabinet against its back. Use the table or cabinet as a desk for a small home office zone.

Maximize Vertical Space

Draw the eye high by making the most of vertical space. A tall armoire or bookshelf breaks up an expanse of long horizontal space. Move the eye upward by creating art and photo arrangements that go high and close to the ceiling. Hang floor-to-ceiling drapery, preferably with vertical stripes, to create the illusion of height.

Watch Now: 3 Ways to Make Your Small Space Appear Bigger

How to Decorate a Long Narrow Living Room

Is your living room a hallway?

No?

It’s just really long and narrow, so it gives off the vibe of a hallway.

Well, it doesn’t have to.

In this guide, we share how to decorate a long narrow living room, transforming your hallway into a cozy living space.

Furniture arrangements

The way you arrange your furniture in your long narrow living room can change the perception of the shape of the space.

Plus It sets the foundation for the room and the rest of your decor going forward.

Here are a few different arrangements for long narrow living rooms.

Courtesy of decorsteals.com on Pinterest

The Straight Pathway

Pushing all of your furniture up against your walls might be your first instinct when decorating a long narrow living room. 

But this tactic works against you, as it emphasizes the length of your space. 

Instead, thespruce.com suggests pulling your furniture out and away from the wall.

Then, arrange your seating in the center of the room underneath a light. 

This creates a cozy central space with footpaths on either side.

Easily achieve this look with a sectional or a combo of a sofa opposite two chairs for an intimate seating arrangement. 

If you don’t like your furniture in the middle of the room, apartmenttherapy.com suggests pushing it up against the wall underneath a window or piece of wall art.

BONUS TIP: Arrange your furniture cross-wise to give your living room a wider appearance.

Courtesy of patticakewagner.com on Pinterest

The Curved Pathway

While the straight pathway does make traversal convenient, it can accentuate the length of the room. 

Break up a long narrow living room by arranging furniture in a curved path. 

To achieve this illusion, use your furniture to divide your space into two separate seating zones.

Courtesy of decorsteals.com on Pinterest

Separate the Space

Instead of decorating one long, narrow living room, separate the space into two different conversation areas.  

These could be:

By segmenting the space into U and L furniture arrangements you guide foot traffic into an arc.  

This negates the hallway feeling that long-living rooms can have while making more use of the available space.

BONUS TIP: You can also zone these separate areas with rugs, lights, and color, making it feel intentional.

Courtesy of settingforfour.com on Pinterest

Decorating a Long Narrow Living Room

Now that you have your larger pieces arranged in your long, narrow living room, you’re ready to decorate!

Here are a few tips for using your decor to reduce the visual length of your living room.

Courtesy of modsy.com on Pinterest

Recommended Round Pieces

A long narrow living room is essentially a big rectangle. 

That's painfully obvious when staring from across the room. 

To help counter long horizontal lines, thespruce.com recommends using circular pieces with soft edges.

Courtesy of classiccasualhome.com on Pinterest

Rely on Rugs

Striped area rugs are a great way to make your living room look and feel wider than it really is.  

If a striped rug isn’t your style, use other styles to define distinct areas we mentioned earlier.

Courtesy of decorsteals.com on Pinterest

Space Saving Shelves

You can only put so many items across the width of your narrow living room. 

We’re no stranger to decorating small spaces, and floating shelves are a great way to save floor space. 

As we mentioned in how to decorate around a tv, floating shelves can help decorate your living room.

They’re excellent tools for providing additional storage without taking up any precious floor space.

Courtesy of thesavvyheart.com on Pinterest

Maximize Vertical Space

Drawing the eye upward will take the focus away from how narrow your living room is. You can do this in several ways. 

A tall armoire or bookshelf will point towards your ceiling while also adding additional storage.

Homedesignlover.com suggests breaking up your horizontal space with an array of photos, artwork, and mirrors.  

This helps define specific spaces within your living room, and reflective surfaces will bounce natural light, making it feel larger. 

Add floor-to-ceiling drapery with vertical stripes to create the illusion of height, and you should be good to go.

 

Now It’s Your Turn

There you have it, how to decorate a long narrow living room. 

Hopefully, you’re more confident in transforming your space from a hallway into a hallmark of a cozy, stylish living room.

Will you be organizing your living room into a straight pathway or a curved pathway? How did you design your sections? 

Let us know which tip you’re going to use on your long narrow living room in the comments below!

6 tips for designing a long narrow room + photo

Natalia | 03.11.2017 | Updated | Interior design | 40 124 views | No comments

Contents of the article

Wagon, pencil case, tunnel - as soon as long narrow rooms are not called. Unfortunately, they are frequent guests in domestic apartments. If the problem cannot be solved by redevelopment and demolition of the wall, then you will have to act more cunningly. Small narrow and long rooms are a challenge for many experienced designers, let alone ordinary people! But do not despair - the right choice of colors, proper placement of furniture and a few win-win tricks will help organize a retracted room and even bring its shape closer to a perfect square. So, the design of a long narrow room: what can be done and what should never be done?

#1. Color scheme and finishes

The main friend of all small and non-standard rooms is light shades. If you don't like white, you can use light gray, beige and light shades of other colors. Dark and bright colors can only be used in small quantities.

The most effective method of is to paint long walls in light colors, thereby pushing them apart, and highlight short walls with a more saturated color, bringing them closer to each other. Two shades can be both in common tonality and contrasting. The ceiling is also desirable to make light, like the floor.

To make the interior not seem boring, you can use bright color accents : paintings, vases, textiles, small pieces of furniture of prominent colors will attract attention and distract the visitor from the true geometry of the room. At least that's what the designers say, backing up this fact with psychology.

Flooring elements are best laid parallel to short walls or even diagonally. Thus, the space of the room can be made visually a little wider.

One of the long walls can be finished with Perspective Wall Murals . Suitable for urban and natural landscapes. This solution can be recognized as ingenious and universal, since due to the perspective the room expands significantly, and due to other methods, it is possible to completely turn the trailer into a harmonious room of the correct form.

mirrors cope well with room correction. By placing a large mirror on a long wall, you can also achieve the effect of expanding space. It is important not to overdo it, and not to use photo wallpaper and a large mirror in the same room. An interesting solution is to use mirror inserts along the top or bottom edge of the wall, making the partitions airy and creating the illusion that the room is actually much larger than it is. In addition, mirrors perfectly reflect light, making the room more lit, which is very important in our case.

Some designers advise to use horizontal stripes in the decoration of one of the short walls , which will partially "run into" the adjacent long wall.

#2. Proper zoning

Another effective technique in the design of a long narrow room is the zoning and allocation of two functional centers in one room. The main thing is not to use bulky cabinets and solid massive partitions to divide the space.

For zoning an elongated room, you can use:

  • carpet in contrasting color to the flooring. In this case, all corners of the room will be quietly illuminated by sunlight, but at the same time, the living area, for example, will be clearly separated from the working area with a desk;
  • platform can be used to place a bed or work station on it. The space under the podium can be used to organize storage. It is important to choose the optimal height of the "pedestal" so that, when entering it, you do not bang your head against the ceiling. Additional separation can be obtained due to the different colors of the walls;
  • small sofa placed across the room . Most of the area will turn into a regular square-shaped living room, and a smaller one can be used as an office;
  • shelving unit with open through shelves works in the same way as the sofa. The main thing is that it should be airy and not block the light;
  • mobile partitions, screens and curtains are suitable when in a narrow long room it is necessary to allocate a place for sleeping and receiving guests, for example.

#3. Proper lighting

A well-lit room appears more spacious than a similarly dark one. In a tram room, it is better to highlight every corner and make the most of sunlight , so light compact curtains are chosen to frame the window. Roman and roller blinds, blinds are perfect, which make it easy to open the entire window opening completely, and, if desired, protect yourself from street light. If necessary, you can complement the window with a delicate translucent tulle.

In artificial lighting , it is better to provide several levels: a chandelier for general light, spotlights, floor lamps and sconces for highlighting individual areas, as well as an LED strip for creating decorative lighting.

No. 4. Arrangement of furniture in a long narrow room

This is the most difficult issue in the design of pencil cases. On the one hand, I want to fit all the required pieces of furniture in order to ensure a comfortable life. On the other hand, if you sideways and zigzags your way from the door to the window, then there is no question of any convenience.

The most effective techniques that designers use when arranging furniture in long narrow rooms:

  • positioning the sofa against a short wall;
  • grouping furniture in one part of the room, leaving the rest more spacious;
  • instead of one large sofa, it is sometimes appropriate to use several armchairs, which form a cozy living room group;
  • it is extremely undesirable to place absolutely all pieces of furniture along long walls - we risk getting a semblance of a railway car, so a small sofa and an armchair set at an angle to it are better than one long sofa;
  • at least part of the furniture must be perpendicular to the long walls ;
  • leave long walls as free as possible, use of open shelves is allowed;
  • wardrobe is best placed against a short wall. So we acquire a storage place, and bring the room closer to the shape of a square.

#5. What other tricks can be used?

There are a number of ways to change the perception of space and give a long room a more regular shape:

  • To make the room visually a little shorter, a barrier located almost at the far short wall will help. A screen, a bench, a small table, etc. can act in its role;
  • the use of round objects allows you to visually smooth the corners and get rid of the tunnel effect;
  • If possible, small niches can be created in the walls. The difference in the depth of the walls will make the interior more dynamic. For this purpose, rough textures are also used, such as decorative stone and brick;
  • works well in long rooms asymmetry so feel free to experiment;
  • the number of pieces of massive furniture is best kept to a minimum. The best option is furniture that is capable of transformation, or one that is easy to move;
  • Carpets with stripes running parallel to short walls are a great way to make a space look wider. Rows of lamps located perpendicular to long walls have a similar effect.

#6. Features of different rooms

The rules described above are equally valid for all long and narrow spaces, but still, when arranging different rooms (living room, bedroom, etc.), it is worth taking into account some nuances.

Narrow and long living room

The living room is usually the largest room in the apartment, because it is a gathering place for all household members and guests. If only a long narrow room remains at your disposal, then it will not be easy. It will be doubly difficult if the room is small in size.

If the living room has a decent length, then it is best to equip several zones . One will have a sofa with a TV and other attributes of the living room, the other will have a dining room, a work desk, or a play area for children.

If the living room is shaped like a pencil case, and at the same time small, then you may have to abandon the traditional large sofa. It can be replaced with a couple of compact sofas or a few armchairs. They must be placed in different planes: parallel and perpendicular to the long wall. Light coffee tables and multifunctional furniture will come to the rescue. Storage places are organized on open shelves and in a small console, which can also act as a TV stand.

Narrow long bedroom

A bedroom is indispensable without a bed, so its location is considered in the first place. It all depends on the size of the room and the bed itself. The standard length is 1.9-2 m. The width of a single bed is about 90 cm, a single bed is up to 140 cm, a double bed is 160-170 cm. sides, preferably 70 cm.

A single bed is usually not a problem. If you want to put a bigger bed, you will have to carefully calculate everything. It is best to put it with a headboard against a long wall, but another option is allowed. In extreme cases, you can move the bed with one side to the wall.

If the bedroom is very long, then you can give part of it to create a dressing room. The remaining space on the opposite side can be used to install a work or dressing table.

Long and narrow kitchen

A long kitchen is the hardest thing to do. As a rule, a linear layout is used and the installation of all kitchen furniture and appliances along one wall. It's great if you can use a short wall with a window and install an L-shaped kitchen. In this case, the geometry of space will be partially saved.

Only part of a long wall can be used as a kitchen set. The remaining space against the short wall can serve as a dining area. This is a good enough solution. You can also advise using translucent chairs.

If the kitchen is small, then it makes sense to move the dining area to the next room, but if this is not possible, then compact bar counters and folding tables will come to the rescue.

Finally, we note that it is worth considering the design of the pencil case room in advance, and during repairs, act with extreme caution so as not to steal usable space, so it is better to refuse drywall as a means of leveling walls if possible.

Article written for remstroiblog.ru.

Tags: Apartment design

Secrets of designing a narrow room that you didn't know about - INMYROOM

Tips

To make a narrow room not look like a wagon, even a designer needs to try hard. We remembered the win-wins and learned new ways to adjust the volume of a narrow room - take note!

As long as there is a Soviet building, the issue of narrow rooms will be relevant. The rectangular shape of the room is inconvenient, and this is a fact. But that doesn't mean it can't be fixed. The only problem is that the standard methods of visually expanding the size of a narrow room do not work in this case - neither the light colors of the walls, nor the standard arrangement of furniture will bring much effect. The play of colors and textures, the correct zoning of the compressed space and the illumination of the necessary elements of the interior help to expand the narrow part of the room - it is these techniques that together can adjust the room of the “carriage” type and bring its shape closer to the cherished square. But first things first.

Volumetric wall covering deep color, 3D fabric, perspective murals

Usually, in order to expand the space, most owners of narrow rooms prefer to glue plain wallpaper or paint the walls in one light color. But such solutions are not suitable for a trailer room - secret design techniques should be used.

Trick #1: The right combination of wall color saturation

Your task is to highlight the short walls and reduce the size of the long ones. To do this, cover the long walls, or at least one of them, with a light tone, and the short one with a deeper, more saturated color.

Technique #2: original decoration of a short wall with a window

Colored curtains or drapes are the best decoration: they give the room airiness and conceal extra centimeters of length. Pay attention to the wall-length curtains with 3D prints that look like paintings or photo wallpapers.

If there is no window on this section of the wall, and you have repeatedly held a brush in your hands, use the surface as a blank canvas: paint a pastoral or trendy urban landscape, and then highlight it, creating the illusion of light from the window.

Reception No. 3: photo wallpaper with a perspective for a long wall

A plain or a mountain range receding into the distance will visually expand the room horizontally, and therefore level out the disproportion of a long narrow room.

Proper zoning of a narrow room podium, carpet, sofa and other helpers

Make two functional centers appear in the room. Just do not try to divide the room into parts with a bulky closet or a blank floor-to-ceiling partition - in this case, one of the sections will completely lose natural light. Better consider more efficient options.

Option No. 1: podium

With it, you designate an area in the room that can be used both as a bedroom, if you place a bed on the podium, and for work - a comfortable chair and a compact table will help create a mini-office . Use the space under the podium for storage.

Option 2: Contrasting carpet

Perhaps the best way to highlight a separate area. But using a different flooring is a common mistake that designers advise to avoid.

Option 3: compact sofa

A proven alternative for zoning tight spaces. Put it across the room - and the way the large area serves as a living room, and the smaller one becomes an office or dining room.

Option No. 4: mobile partition

It allows you to save those situations in which the construction of solid walls is unjustified or their construction is impossible for some reason. Of course, mobile partitions serve more as a visual division of space, but they create a very clear boundary between the two zones.

Option 5: curtains

The most romantic and cozy way to divide a room into zones. The fabric allows you to protect the desired area and add brightness and softness to both "rooms". You can choose translucent fabrics that create a light haze, or you can choose heavy ones to finally separate part of the room.

Proper arrangement of furniture

One of the most common mistakes is placing furniture along the walls, which visually lengthens a narrow room even more. Abandon the idea of ​​placing a coffee table directly in front of the sofa - use the principle of shifting furniture to one side.

Example #1: the less furniture, the better

There is not much furniture in the living room in the photo, and it is grouped and arranged in such a way that there is a lot of free space - the room looks wider than it really is. Another good solution that allows you to visually change the proportions of the living room is a screen in the corner. The design does not look bulky and takes up little space, but at the same time it radically changes the appearance of the room.

Example #2: A good company is the key to success

The use of several small sofas and armchairs instead of one large sofa allowed to visually expand the space. Of course, wide-angle camera lenses used for professional photography can make even a small room appear large and spacious. Nevertheless, based on the size of the furniture that we see in the photo, we can conclude that the length of the room is not more than four meters. The size of the small sofa at the end of the room suggests that the width is also about 3.5 meters. It is this small sofa that gives the interior of the room a complete look: without it, the living room would look like just a long corridor.

Example #3: focus on shape

The key to success in decorating a narrow room is round tables and other pieces of furniture. The living room in the photo combines a place to relax and a dining room. Both tables here are round, which helps to drastically change the proportions of a long room visually.

Remember the magic of mirrors because everything ingenious is simple

Large mirrors are an easy way to create the illusion of extra space and the most effective technique when working on small and narrow rooms. Place a mirrored closet along a short wall. Large round and square mirrors or a composition of them - along the long one. The result will not keep you waiting: visually the room will become much wider.

Expert opinion: advice to InMyRoom readers

It would seem that we have already told about all the techniques for visually correcting a narrow space. But it turns out that there is another powerful weapon - artificial lighting!

Olesya Larsen - architect, graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 2008 with a degree in architecture. She also studied at the British Higher School of Design (interior design course). He believes that in design, as in architecture, it is important not only how the object will look, but also how and from what it will be made: it is important to combine the aesthetic and functional objectives of the project.

In addition to the main ways of visual correction of the interior space, use LED lighting, which has been gaining more and more popularity lately. With its help, break the wall planes into separate elements of the desired shape, divide the wall canvas into the required volumes, and focus on the required nuances of the interior. This technique will give lightness to the wall structure. Additional lighting visually enlarges the space. Plus, various additional lighting scenarios greatly diversify the interior.

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