When you enter an unfurnished house, the living room is often a blank canvas. Unlike the kitchen or the bathroom, the living room doesn’t have any required installations. At most, you might have a fireplace. However, you’re usually presented with four blank walls and a ceiling. If you’re planning to remodel your home, consider adding visual interest to the blank canvas of your living room.
Lattice Wall Trim
Certain styles of trim, such as chair rails and paneling, are common. However, you can combine them for a unique style to add visual interest to large expanses of blank wall. For instance, you could have the contractors use trim to create a lattice wall.
Say you have a single large wall — your lattice wall can stand alone. You could have the contractors create diamonds or squares across the entire expanse. Conversely, you could have the lattice combined with another trim style, such as the chair rail. In this case, the latticework will be only above or below the horizontal cut provided by the chair rail.
Inlaid Ceiling Medallions
As the name suggests, a ceiling medallion is traditionally for the ceiling. These circles are normally installed around the base of a light fixture. They can range in size from a few inches all around to a foot or more. Likewise, the medallion can be ornate or simple. Such medallions are an attractive way to add visual interest to your ceiling.
You can also utilize their unique patterning for a large, blank wall. In this case, you’ll choose a selection of medallions. If you want a symmetrical effect, choose medallions in the same size. Otherwise, get creative with medallions in different sizes and shapes. The contractors can inlay these into the wall surface as a charming bas-relief installation.
Coffered Ceiling
Contractors can also get creative with the trim they apply to the ceiling. A traditional coffered ceiling consists of a system of square panels, the coffers, which create a grid on your ceiling. Coffers can be deep or shallow, and some are quite elaborate. However, you can have a customized version created with trim.
In this case, you’ll choose trim or box beams for the contractors to use — the deeper the well created by the trim, the more visual weight your ceiling will carry. The contractors will use the chosen trim to create the coffers. You can have the ceiling painted one color, or you can emphasize the grid pattern by painting the trim a complementary color.
Streamlined Fireplace Surround
Sometimes adding visual interest is more about taking away patterning. For example, brick and stone work are common around the fireplace. However, new technologies in firebox design allow you to modernize the surround without sacrificing safety.
You can have the designers actually omit the hearth, legs, and mantle. Your fireplace can be a simple square or rectangle in your wall. With this design, you can either keep the look minimalist, or you can use the expanded blank space to hang artwork.
Lighting Ambience
Another subtle method for adding visual interest to your living room is with ambient lighting. Room lighting consists of three layers — task, accent, and ambient. Task lighting is utilitarian, meaning you’ll add illumination wherever you need it. Ambient and accent lighting are the ways you can add beauty with illumination.
So if you have any areas of architectural interest or spaces where you’re displaying artwork, you’ll want to train track lights in that direction. You can also backlight a shelf. You can even add uplighting if you’ve chosen to add trim to your ceiling. Another way to add ambience is with recessed lights that you turn on for more subtle illumination.
Whether you choose a subtle or more whimsical approach, customize your living room remodel to add visual interest to an otherwise blank space. Let the remodel experts at Case Design/Remodeling help you design and implement your living room remodel.
