How I add Layers in our Living Room

One the of statements I hear most often regarding our home, is how cozy our living room looks. It truly is my most favorite space in our entire house, and I love how warm and inviting it feels in person too. One look at our couch, and it’s just asking you to come and plop down in between the layers of throw pillows and take a load off. Whenever I’m relaxing in this space I always find myself letting out a big exhale and admiring the room I’ve created. One of the things I believe that is a key contributor in making this space so cozy and inviting are the layers I’ve carefully added over the years. I didn’t realize while I was in the middle of the process, but every time I would analyze what was missing in our living room it would always come back to the layered look I’ve acquired. So today I’m sharing just how I added layers in our living room, and why I think they are key to making any space cozy and inviting.

Let’s dive in ~

This is a common view you have probably seen of our living room before. I can tell you it was a process to achieve this look that has now been a staple on my blog for the past 5 years. I’ve shared before how our living room has transformed over the years (it is a hoot to see, you can see all the before and in between, and progress photos HERE), and I can honestly say I know I have fully found my style in here, because this look you see hasn’t changed in quite a few years.

Step 1 – Remove all of the added decor items, so you are only left with bare bones.

A clean slate if you will! It’s crazy how bare everything looks once you take away all the decor and curtains, and I’ve mentioned before in some blog posts, how when I’m feeling stuck on how to decorate our spaces, or things start to feel claustrophobic, I take everything out of the room, strip it down to the bare bones so I have a clean slate to start with.

In this exercise, I wanted to have a clean canvas, so you could see step-by-step just how much adding layers to the rooms in your home makes a difference.

Step 2 – Add Window Treatments

I know I know, most of us already have curtains hanging up in our house – most. But I know for a fact that not everyone has experienced the value in having window treatments. And sometimes our current window treatments aren’t making the cut when it comes to making our room feel cozy or inviting. I talk about just how important window treatments are in “My Go-To Decorating Advice” post HERE, it’s #1 in the line up, but let me show you why.

When hanging curtains, my go-to choice are always 96″ cotton or linen panels. Let me tell you why. First, they look more expensive than the polyester or rayon /blend curtains that are most commonly found, making the overall look and feel of your room of higher quality. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a ton of money on them either. I will be back tomorrow with a quick round up of some of my favorite linen curtains that are 1/4 of the price of the ones you find in high end stores.

To create more layers in our living room, I also hang woven blinds shown below.

I’ll share more on how adding these wooden blinds adds texture and warmth to my space, but for now I want to point out how layering window treatments adds more depth to the overall feel of your room.

Step 3 – Layer Throw Pillows.

There’s nothing I love more than adding throw pillows to our sofa. Our sofa is pretty deep, 41″ to be exact, so there is plenty of room to layer in throw pillows for an inviting look.

The most common throw pillow sizes I go for are 20″ and 22″. Here the larger gray throw pillows are 24″ (Euro size), and the white throw pillows are 22″, just for reference.

Step 4 – Add warmth

Over the years as I would tweak things in our living room, to try and land on my ideal decor style, and I realized something. In my pursuit to a light and bright living room I was missing something – warmth. Even though I knew I wanted a mostly white living room, what I discovered in the process was how to keep our almost all white living room from feeling too stark and blah, is by making sure I have enough warmth in the space. This came in the form of weathered wood tones, evenly placed around the room. Not just one item, or on one side of the room, but just enough to warm up the rest of the white in our living room.

I added this in side tables, table lamps, the heirloom chest we use as a coffee table, and of course my favorite HomeGoods mirror hanging above our couch. Not only does it warm up our living room, but it adds texture that balances out the crisp white on the walls and in our sofa. Those wooden blinds that I use to create layers in our window treatments, also add warmth and texture to the space, which I think is a key element to have when decorating with white.

Step 5 – Add accessories

Now is when the room starts to come alive, by adding accessories. This is where your room starts to take on a personality – hopefully reflecting your true style, and it tells a little bit of your story. Now only do accessories count as the final layer in your space, but they really help the room feel complete. I like to think of accessories as jewelry, and how we use jewelry to embellish the outfits we are wearing, and how it adds the finishing touch.

Side Table Vignettes ~

I like to keep my vignettes to groups of 3 on our side tables, that way they don’t take up too much space, or add more clutter to the room. I use the lamp, which also adds cozy lighting at night, either books or candles – or both, and a pop of green!

Notice too, how the lamp adds layers when it’s slightly placed in front of the artwork hung on the wall. I like to let me artwork look as though it’s peeking out from behind the lamp, drawing your eye over to is so you can see more. This is a great way to help add that layered feeling to the room as well.

Our Layered Living Room ~

Here’s one more Before & After of how the room started to the finished layered look you see now ~

I hope this helps you with decorating your own home. Take a look around your spaces. Does something feel like it’s missing? Do you have layers? Sometimes it’s not so much that we need to fill a room with more stuff, it’s are we filling it with the right stuff, that really makes the difference.

You can find more posts dedicated to helping you Love the Space you Live In ~ Here