The living room is one of the rooms we spend most of our waking hours in, but it can be one of the hardest rooms to arrange. We want to help you make your living room the most liveable room possible, with a few key tips.
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1. Evaluate
Have a good look at your room and consider the following:
- What do you love about it, and what drives you crazy?
- If constant clutter or toys everywhere drive you batty, think about a storage system that might work for you.
- Is your furniture the correct scale for the room? Lots of small furniture pieces in a large room can make it feel cluttered and busy. And on the flipside, giant overstuffed couches in a small living room can make it feel smaller and cramped.
- Does the room function the way you use your living space? Since living rooms can serve so many functions, it’s important to think about the way YOU use it. Is it a playroom, TV room, game room, or all of the above?
- Consider the way that people move through the space, also known as the flow of the room. What are the destinations within the room (ie: couch, chairs, bookcase, etc)… are there obstacles in the way? Do people need to walk through the living room to get to other areas in your house? If so, these require wider walkways.
2. Less is more
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in a room that just has too much stuff in it. Start by taking out anything that you don’t use. If you have a collection of knick-knacks, pair it down to your favorites. Clear off the clutter from your coffee table. Invest in some smart storage that can store away or display some of the clutter, while still looking great; like Sarah’s sideboard (Canada) (USA), for instance.
3. Clean it up
A clean space can be so beneficial to your mental and physical health. So the next step is to clean up your room.
- Work in a circle, top to bottom, and left to right. Start with your ceiling fan if you have one.
- Vacuum everything first, then wipe down surfaces (and walls where needed) with our recipe of 1 gallon of hot water and 1 tsp of powdered Tide® (no bleach here since there’s likely carpet or upholstery that could be ruined).
- Move your couches and vacuum behind and under them. (Don’t forget to vacuum (Canada) (USA) underneath your cushions and suck up any lint or pet hair on your upholstery.)
- Make sure to dust your fireplace, and clean your TV.
- Lastly, give the whole space one last vacuum and mop.
4. Arrange
Now that you have a clean, decluttered room, it’s time to arrange your furniture. Here are some tips that designers use for arranging furniture:
- Don’t place all the furniture against the walls. It sounds counterintuitive, but this actually makes your room look smaller. Even pulling your couch just 6 inches away from the wall will draw your eye away from the wall and into the room.
- Consider flow. Where will people be walking in the room? How will they get from point A to point B? Does the room function as a walkway between other rooms in your home? Make sure you leave extra space as a walkway in this case.
- What is the focal point of the room? Is it the fireplace, the TV, or something else entirely?
- What is the purpose of the room? Is it a playroom? Do you play board games or watch TV? Make sure the furniture is arranged so that your room works for those purposes.
- Do you have kids? Think about how they will use the room too. Also, if you need to be able to see them playing from another room like the kitchen.
- Create conversation areas and groupings.
- Use an area rug to define the space, and ground the furniture groupings. (Hello, Ruggable®.)
5. Let there be light and life
Nothing brings life to a space like actual living things. Maybe you have a green thumb or maybe you couldn’t keep a plant alive if your life depended on it – but no worries!
Start small – bring in one plant, see if you can keep it alive, and see how it makes you feel. (My 3 plant tips are: light, water, and drainage!) Then you can go from there.
Plants and humans need sunlight. Maximize your windows! Open up your blinds and let in all that natural light. Hang your curtains as close to the ceiling as you can to draw your eye up and out.
6. Layer and accessorize
Now it’s time to add some personality. Bring in your favorite accessories and display them in a pleasing way. Consider the rule of threes: Items often look pleasing when grouped in sets of threes. But don’t let us tell you what to do. Play around with it. Up the ‘cozy factor’ by bringing in pillows and blankets.
Make Your House a Home
Need a place to start in your own Living Room? Find Sarah’s favourite items here as inspiration. (Canada) (USA)
Hopefully these tips will help you to create a living space that makes you happy. It’s a living room – now live in it! For more great cleaning tips, be sure to take our Basic Training interactive video course! You can learn more here.
For a list of our favorite products, click here.
- Becky @ GoCleanCo
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gocleanco
Sep 22
It’s Kitchen week of the Fall Cleaning Challenge and I can finally share my new kitchen sink from BLANCO that everyone has been asking about. I am very excited to be working with @blancoamerica1 they are THE kitchen experts and a global brand with over 95 years of experience. Head to my stories to see how I care for this beauty on the daily and how easy it is to treat stains. BLANCO is more than just sinks; they also have faucets and organizational systems (like the BOTTON) that work together as an integrated UNIT. #ad
gocleanco
Sep 19
We kicked off the Fall Cleaning Challenge by flying to Burnaby, British Columbia and cleaning our Spring Cleaning Challenge (2023) winners house! We had so much fun doing this clean. Lots of team work, planning and love was poured into this project! Getting cheered on by you folks makes it all worth it! Being able to pay our good fortune forward to our followers makes us all warm and fuzzy. Big thanks to our brand partners who generously hooked us up with so much gifted stuff for the winner. We all need to go nap for 3 days now 😂 Did you enter the Fall Cleaning Challenge so that this can be you Spring 2024?! Link in our bio or head to our website to enter. #cleaning Special thanks to @ruggable @bollandbranch @oceansalesltd @proctergamble @amazoninfluencerprogram 💕
gocleanco
Sep 15
Want to open your front door and see our smiling faces coming to clean your house? Then you better get over to bleachpraylove.com on Monday, September 18th and join the Fall Cleaning Challenge! That’s right, the Grand Prize is a house clean by yours truly and my crew. We fly to you and give your house a top to bottom clean like only we can. How does the Fall Cleaning Challenge work? Each week for four weeks follow along and clean your house with me! Plus we have soooo cool many prizes! Each week we will be giving away some of my favorite things like @bollandbranch @ruggable @sharkbeauty blow dryers, and my personal fav cold hard 💰 to help you catch up on bills, buy a new vacuum or hire someone to help you with your looming House Work if you can’t get caught up! If you want to see more of our adventure at the Spring Cleaning Challenge winners house stay tuned in stories for the next few days PLUS we are filming it all for YouTube and you can watch it all the behind the scenes dirty laundry…The good, the bad…the filthy. Love you folks. For reals. 💕 Thank you for making our job so fun! #cleaningmotivation
gocleanco
Aug 25
No visit from @hellohairhouse is complete without a kitchen haircut! #fallhairtrends
gocleanco
Aug 24
The Fall Cleaning Challenge starts on Monday Sept 18th, 2023. Y’all ready? The download will be available on September 18th and the grand prize is a house clean by yours truly! We also have some new vacuum testing coming your way 😈 My garage is FULL of suckers baby and I’m not mad about it. #fallcleaning
gocleanco
Aug 19
Update: It’s a damn ice box in here and I’ve been sleeping like a baby. #airconditioning
gocleanco
Aug 8
Perfect example that cleaning 👏🏻 is 👏🏻 home 👏🏻 maintenance 👏🏻 Take care of your stuff and it will last longer. This little handy-dandy-doo-dad scrubber is linked in my Amazon Storefront. #cleaningtips
gocleanco
Aug 3
Had fun in the angels’ city chasing fortune and fame 😎 Thanks @amazoninfluencerprogram for #hosting me. And no I didn’t get tickets to any shows this weekend but for the rest of you—take the moment and taste it. 🫶🏼
gocleanco
Jul 19
To the Salon!!!!!! (Or in this case, the laundry room.) Saved these fabulous scuffed up pumps with some @tidelaundrystainremover a cloth and some patience. Just in time for @barbiethemovie premiere! Have fun @lauren_lally always happy to be of service 🫡 #barbiethemovie
gocleanco
Jul 12
Bathroom organization top picks! Everything is in my storefront to 🛍️ #amazonfinds
gocleanco
Jul 11
Summer is here! Clean up your space so you actually want to hangout in it. That hot tub…it’s not mine…k🤦🏼♀️ Link in bio for these products, some are on sale for Prime Day, just check the albums for your country.
gocleanco
Jul 11
Robot Vacuum Fight Club! 💪🏻 Things we threw on the floor: Shreddies, Powdered Tide, (clean) Cat Litter, A crumbled up loaf of sourdough and good old dirt! Stay tuned for the results. 🧐 #thiswasmorefunthaniexpected
gocleanco
Jul 8
Spent my morning making a very aesthetically pleasing Raspberry Pie Reel for y’all but it ended up being a Raspberry Scramble 🥴💀 Wasn’t gonna post it BUT when life feels like a scramble it can still be delicious. 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 Please consider this my official petition to bring @jello back as a dessert staple.
gocleanco
Jul 7
Shower tracked destroyed with built up hard water minerals? Here’s an easy solution with a simple house hold ingredient and elbow grease. Still gonna take some scrubbing friends, good results take work. #cleaningtips
gocleanco
Jul 6
Is pressure washing considered a form of therapy? Asking for a friend. #backupvocalsduuuuuuuuupe
gocleanco
Jun 29
Years in the making…it’s FINALLY here…and it’s a masterpiece. Over the years I have received thousands of DM’s asking what to pick when renovating your home. What is the easiest to clean? What will survive the test of time? So I compiled it all here in our Home Renovation Guide. Apologies for taking so long but we kept adding and it kept getting longer and longer. This has been a labour of love. Link in bio to purchase or tap to shop! #itsbeenalongtimecoming
gocleanco
Jun 21
Sounds like a lot of you have slime problems. Here’s how we got it out! Sprinkle baking soda on the slime and smush it down into the carpet fibres so it gets in deep. Add straight vinegar and let it sit for about 30 mins. Scrub it with a brush. Repeat until it’s gone! When you repeat, you need to let it sit each time for 30 mins so it starts to break down the slime. We scrubbed for 30 mins too, don’t give up! Think about how expensive the damn carpet is to replace and that will give you lots of energy! As always: It is a good idea to test an inconspicuous spot first (like in a closet) before try you so this because all carpets are different. Try at your own risk but also if you have dried slime all over your carpet I think you are screwed anyways. GOOD LUCK and report back. #slime #slimetoturial
gocleanco
Jun 18
I’m a simple creature. Here’s the haul I promised from the viral sweater set. Yellow usually isn’t my colour but I’m feeling it the most! Wearing a medium, it’s machine washable but I have been laying it flat to dry. Everything is linked in my bio and up in my stories. #amazonfinds
gocleanco
Jun 17
If you thought I was going to miss an opportunity to use this bop, you were wrong. Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there, reminder that a clean tractor is a sexy tractor. @kubotacanada if you wanna detail this thing next year LMK. 🚜 🧽 🫧😎
gocleanco
Jun 16
5 days left to get in that spring clean!! 😂💪🏻 Here’s a round up of all the stuff we’ve cleaned with @mrclean if you need some inspiration! It’s been quite the journey 😵💫🤢What else do y’all use @mrclean for? #mrcleanpartner #sponsored