The living room is the beating heart of your home. It’s where you convene as a family to watch TV, play games, or just lounge around and relax after a long day. It’s a place where you find rest and have fun in your own space. 

Modern living rooms require modern style, and most modern living rooms are designed for comfort and functionality. Neutral living room ideas are a reliable way to get the best of both worlds. 

Let’s talk about some neutral ideas to make your family room a bit more cozy in a modern way. These tips will help you to make a living room that’s comfortable and serves your needs well. 

Modern Styles

There isn’t just one way to create a modern living room; there are many. There are different modern styles out there for you to choose from. You just have to pick one and then start creating a cohesive-looking space. Here are a couple of modern styles to choose from. 

Mid-Century Modern

One of the most appealing and recognizable interior design styles in the modern day is mid-century modern design. It has clean lines but also organic shapes. Its purpose is both style and practicality, so it’s a functional and stylish design method. 

Mid-century modern design also uses a lot of neutral colors in addition to wood tones. It prefers to construct furniture with natural-looking materials like wood and leather. It has soft browns and brighter neutrals like creams, beiges, and grays. It’s sleek, yet comfortable and welcoming. 

Bohemian 

The bohemian style is all about making you happy, but this home design style can still have a neutral look. Express your feelings and tastes with this style. The rule of thumb with bohemian is that if it makes you happy, it should have a place in your home. 

This results in a charmingly eclectic display of furniture, textiles, and art. It also tends to have a lot of brighter colors in addition to foundational neutrals. It rejects some standard rules for interior design, but it makes up for it with personality and flare. 

Industrial 

The industrial style is rugged in an urban way, but also cool and clean. You’ll see lots of modern construction materials such as concrete ceilings, iron pillars and framing, and things of that nature. 

This style tends towards darker neutrals like grays and blacks, but it’s not limited to them. It also loves big windows and a ton of natural light. 

Scandanavian 

This is one of the coziest modern design styles. It thrives with bright neutrals like creams, tans, whites, and soft grays. It has minimalist touches but in a warm, comforting way. This style is about comfort and functionality and stays in touch with nature in a modern way. 

You’ll find a lot of houseplants in Scandanavian spaces and plenty of windows with warm light pouring through. It’s inviting in a way most other modern styles are not. 

Farmhouse Chic

This is the modern take on the farmhouse style. It’s cozy and reminiscent of a bygone era. You’ll find rustic accent pieces such as old farm tools and pieces made with aged wood. 

This style also loves the brighter neutral palette and natural light, but it offers a different type of charm and comfiness than Scandanavian. 

What Do They All Have in Common?

The main things that all of these modern styles have in common are a neutral color palette, natural light, and a combination of comfort and style. They’re casual, yet elegant. They lean toward minimalism rather than maximalism. They’re all amazing styles that can make a living room feel stylish and wonderful to be in.

Neutral Living Room Ideas

Now let’s get into a few neutral living room decor ideas to bring your living room further into the modern styles. Neutral colors, and all colors for that matter, have a distinct effect on your mood and emotions, so it’s important to add neutrals to your living room to make it more inviting. 

Neutral Accent Chair

Every living room needs a place to sit in. And sure, sectionals offer a great amount of seating and are a staple of many living rooms, but a well-selected accent chair with a neutral color can complete the look and feel of a living space. 

This swivel-curved back accent chair is a great choice for most modern living rooms. Its soft, organic shape lends itself well to cozy styles, and its boucle fabric upholstery makes for an incredibly soft, comfortable chair. Sometimes all that your living room design needs is one accent piece to tie everything together.

A Neutral Area Rug

A rug with neutral tones is an amazing piece of home decor to really ground your space, provide a visual foundation for the room, and give your feet a comfy surface to walk on. This simple idea can give you a more neutral space without adding any living room furniture. 

For a Scandinavian room, a cream rug with a subtle design and the occasional pop of color can make the room feel cozier and more cohesive. Pick a rug that matches your style and start to create a neutral color scheme for your living room to make the space feel more cozy and welcoming. 

Rugs are not only important for contributing to the color scheme, but they also help to divide the space in your room effectively. You can have one rug for the coffee table, couch, and sitting area, and another for a different dedicated space in the room. 

A Neutral Coat of Paint

Sometimes all your living needs is a fresh coat of neutral paint color. This small DIY makeover might take a day of work, but it can completely alter the feel of the room and provide a neutral backdrop to everything else happening in the room. 

The neutral walls of a white living room reflect light far better than darker colors do. Not only does this make the room feel happier, but it also makes the room feel larger. So this is definitely the move if you have a small living room that you want to feel bigger.

Leather Furniture

For neutral living rooms dominated by creams and off-whites, a piece of leather furniture makes for an amazing touch. This breath of natural material gives a bit of life to the room without dominating the space with too much color. This allows you to have more control over color accents you’d like to place elsewhere such as art or framed photos. 

You could consider replacing your sectional sofa with a small leather sofa and an accent chair. This will give the room a bit of variance and make it feel more open without giving up too much seating. 

Gallery Wall

Another popular design idea that can complete the neutral feel of your living room is a gallery wall of some pieces of art or photography that you love. Not only is this a great way to inject some of your personality and taste into the room in a clear way, but it’s also a great way to help you control the color palette of the room as a whole. 

A neutral room needs a bit of color in order to truly be complete. Neutral rooms are about intentional color placements, not the lack of color. So gallery walls, houseplants, rugs, and art pieces are specific, intentional ways you can add some tasteful bits of color to the room. 

You could make a gallery wall full of neutral-colored pieces, or you could curate a bunch of pieces with unique colors to give the room more life and personality. Either way, a gallery wall is a great way to make your room more stylish and complete. 

Open Your Space

Sometimes, in order to make your room more neutral, you don’t even need to change anything about the colors in your room. You might just need to open up the space a little bit more. Open space brings in natural light and lets the neutrals already present in the room do their thing. 

Clutter can be the enemy of neutral rooms. The point of having a neutral room is for it to be cozy and welcoming. But a cluttered, cramped space is counterproductive. Consider getting rid of a piece of furniture or two or rearranging for a more open floor plan can really help your space to feel more neutral and comfortable. 

A Modern, Neutral Space

Now you have plenty of ideas to get you started on making your living room more neutral and inviting. It will really make a difference in how your room feels, so take these ideas and get started. 

For more information about interior design and a great selection of modern, neutral furniture and other home goods, check out eLuxury. 

Sources:

8 Interior Design Styles You Can Do to Refresh Your Home | Academy of Art University

Color and Mood | Color Psychology

Importance of Rugs for Interior Design | AA Home Network