Shelley Ferguson, editorial director of Your Home and Garden Magazine recently hosted a living room styling session at our Wairau Park Flagship Store. If you missed it, don’t worry we’ve rounded off all of Shelley’s key tips for styling a living room below.

Start with a focal point
Where is the natural focus in your space? There is usually a great feature like a window with a view, a fireplace or favourite artwork that you naturally want to face. Design your living space to maximise that feature!

Think about traffic flow and zones
Map out where people actually walk. Changing the configuration and positioning of your furniture can really change how you live in the room. The way furniture is placed affects how you interact with each other. Think about how you want to feel in your living space and the experiences you want to have, and select furniture to reflect that. Work out scale before you go shopping – measure up your space! Tape out the exact areas you want to place furniture, take a photo, and measure what size pieces you want.

Start big and soft
Start with upholstered pieces – sofas and chairs. Two easy layouts are two sofas facing each other, or one sofa and two large armchairs – both configurations encourage conversation. Try to place sofas away from the walls if you can, don’t place all your furniture against the wall! It’s very formal and creates an awkward space in the middle of the room. Create a zone that encourages different activities like conversation, reading or movie watching.

Ground your furniture with a large rug and you’ll find it creates a much more impactful zone. Make sure you have an idea of what zones you want to create before you go furniture shopping.

Furnish for comfort and living
Make your living space liveable with comfy, deep, upholstered pieces and snuggly but durable fabrics.

Add the ‘stuff catching’ hard pieces
Ottomans, a coffee table, side tables, consoles, bookshelves – the pieces that catch and store all your stuff – also try to use moveable furniture for versatility.

Layer your space with homewares you love

• Texture – Add warmth and depth to the room with different fabrics and textures.
• Soft furnishings – Add luxurious curtains and cushions in different colours and sizes, add throws on sofas and armchairs.
• Artwork – Choose art that makes your heart sing. A great way to choose a colour scheme is by pulling a colour palette out of an artwork you love.
• Styling – Add finishing touches, groupings of your homewares and personal items like photographs.
• Style your bookshelf – De-clutter, have a clear colour palette, start with books, add artwork, put on pretty things then make it personal.

For more tips view Shelley’s styling session from our Wairau Park Flagship Store below: