We all love spending time in our living rooms. It’s the place where we relax after a long day of work and, well, where we do our living. It’s an incredibly important room that needs to be designed well to achieve maximum comfort for day-to-day activities, TV watching, and rest. 

One of the best ways to design your living room interior is with an accent chair. It acts as a small focal point that gives some visual interest to the room, and it gives you an extra place to sit when you have lots of people in your living room. 

But how do you style your accent chairs? Well, today, we’re going to answer that question. By the end of this short guide, you’ll have plenty of ideas to take your accent chair and your living room as a whole to the next level. So keep reading! 

The Accent Chair

Accent chairs, and accent furniture in general, are a fantastic addition to your living room. Sure, sectionals are a great way to provide seating in your living room. But it’s also great to choose a smaller couch and an accent chair. This provides more visual interest and makes the space feel more interesting and cozy. 

To get a good grasp on how we should be styling accent chairs, let’s first take a look at what the accent chair does for a living room. 

Complement

When it comes to style, the main purpose of the accent chair is to complement the rest of the room. You don’t want your accent chair to become the center of attention or overpower the space. It isn’t the focal point of the room, so don’t set it up as such. 

Instead, opt for stylish accent chairs that enhance the space. Don’t go for flashy patterns or overly bright colors. Instead, try unique textures and a soft accent color that fits with the color palette of the room as a whole. 

Contrast

The other main purpose of the accent chair is to provide a bit of contrast to the room as a whole. The contrast in color, shape, and material help to provide visual interest to the room. 

The goal is to balance contrast and complementation. It’s great to choose complementary colors that contrast with one another. It’s also great to provide a contrast in shape, such as curvy and round vs. straight and sharp. 

Personality 

Accent chairs are also meant to inject some character into the room. The living room is your space, after all, so it should have reflections of your personality and taste. Accent chairs are a great way to breathe some life into the room.

Division of Space

A simple accent chair can also help to divide the living room to create a more dynamic space. If you have a larger living room and want to divide it into multiple areas, accent chairs can be a major part of defining the two spaces. 

Say you want to put a reading nook in the corner of your living room. An accent chair can serve as the focal point of that second space, helping to clearly divide it from the rest of the room in a way that is stylish and intentional. 

Seating

And finally, of course, accent chairs are good for seating. Every living room needs places to sit. Accent chairs are an amazing way to add a little extra seating to a room. This is especially great for rooms with smaller couches or love seats as the primary seating. 

6 Beautiful Styling Ideas

Now that we have a solid framework to work from, let’s dive into some more specific styling ideas for the accent chair in your living room.

1. Around a Coffee Table

One reliable way to place accent chairs in your living room is around the coffee table. This works particularly well if you use two accent chairs on the same side of the table and place them facing the coffee table head-on. This creates a closed circle around the coffee table and makes the coffee table the centerpiece of the room. 

This is perfect if you want to make conversation or party-hosting the main focus of the room. It has all the people facing each other while they’re sitting down, so it encourages everyone to interact with one another. It’s also a neat way to lay out your room if you love playing board games on your coffee table. 

You can place your couch on the other side of the table to finish that circle, and you’ve got a great seating area that you, your family, and your friends will love. 

2. Cozy Reading Nook

Creating a reading nook in one corner of your living room is a great way to utilize your accent chair to make a specific space that serves its own purpose. Having a chair that’s designated for relaxing and reading is great for bookworms, but it can make anybody’s room feel dynamic and interesting. 

Pick a nice cozy color that goes with the room, and choose a nice comfortable chair you can be comfortable in. Nice upholstery is preferred.

Add a side table to place your mug of coffee or tea, and get a table lamp or floor lamp to light your book. Place a stylish rug down to define the space, and maybe put an inspiring piece of art on the wall. Naturally, don’t forget the wooden, modern bookshelf to hold all your favorite novels. Now, you have a perfect little reading space. 

With only a few simple elements, you can make the accent chair an excellent attention grabber that serves a functional purpose in your room.

3. Love Seat Gallery Wall

Love seats make for amazing accent chairs. The fact that they can seat two people is very practical, but they can also make for stylish additions to your space. 

One way to help frame a room (especially if that room needs to be balanced) is by adding more visual interest on one side of the room with a gallery wall. If you’re truly looking to make a wall visually heavy and compelling, place a love seat at the foot of the wall and your beautiful gallery above the love seat. 

By utilizing these design elements together, you add a ton of visual weight to one side of the room. This can be a handy way to draw attention to a selection of family photos or personal art. Get creative with this powerful tool. 

4. Splash of Color

It’s an accent chair, so it’s more than okay to let it be an accent in the room. Choosing an accent chair that will act as a pop of dynamic color for the room is a great way to utilize it. It makes your room fun and gives it a ton of personality. 

When doing this, make sure that the color you choose fits with the color scheme of the room as a whole. As we said before, your accents should complement as well as contrast, so choose your pops of color wisely. 

5. Throw Pillows 

These tools are a classic way to add a bit of texture and depth to pieces of furniture like couches and chairs. And the best part is that there are limitless different styles, patterns, colors, and materials for you to choose from when it comes to throw pillows. 

Make a neutral-colored chair a bit more provocative and stimulating with a uniquely-patterned pillow. Or tone down a brighter chair with a neutral-colored, textured pillow. Or get a matching pillow and chair set for uniformity. There are so many options. 

If pillows aren’t really your style, you can also invest in a throw blanket. Blankets make for great decor pieces. You can fold them and hang them nicely over the back of the chair to make for a great addition to the room.

6. Make Your Style

The most important part about any room is that it reflects its owner and their tastes and personality. If you love the Scandinavian style, get a chair that’s wooden, linen, and uses brighter neutral colors. If you love the industrial style, get a stately accent chair with a black metal frame and nice leather. 

Whatever your style may be, accent pieces are meant to be the drivers of style in your living room. They are the pieces with the most character, the intentional things that were hand-selected to be interesting, fun, and comfortable.

Pick a piece that you love that helps to bring the style together in a cohesive, beautiful way. 

A Styled Accent Chair

Now you have the know-how to style your accent chair like a pro. Use these ideas to take your living room to the next level with a beautiful accent chair that you’ll love sitting in. 

For more information on interior design and a great selection of luxurious, modern furniture, check out eLuxury. 

Sources:

7 Basic Principles of Interior Design | Indian Institute of Art and Design

Design: Exploring the Elements & Principles | Iowa State University

So, What DO You Do In A Living Room? | NPR