Bohemian living room remodel
Layered textiles, plants everywhere, and no matching set anywhere. What that means for a living room remodel — what changes, the palette, the dimensions that still have to hold — and how to try it on a photo of your own room.
What the work actually covers
Living rooms are remodelled for three reasons: the fireplace is dated, the floor is tired, or the lighting is a single fitting in the middle of the ceiling. Address those and the furniture arrangement usually sorts itself out, because it was the room fighting back, not the sofa. Taken in Bohemian, the elements on the list — fireplace and surround, flooring, lighting and switching, built-in joinery — are the ones carrying the look, and the walls and the ceiling planes. boho needs surfaces that accept hanging — rails, hooks, beams — far more than it needs a particular finish.
Making a living room remodel read as Bohemian
Bohemian is accumulated rather than specified, which makes it an odd fit for a remodel — the work is building a neutral shell that can carry layers. Plain walls, simple floors and plenty of places to hang, stack and hook. Against a living room remodel that means the pieces doing the visible work are layered floor rugs, rattan or peacock chair, low daybed with cushions, sitting inside whatever the layout already demands.
Palette and materials
Bohemian holds a narrow range: Raw Cotton, Terracotta, Saffron, Fern, Plum, with materials running to rattan and cane, macramé and jute, kilim and persian rugs, unfinished mango wood. On a living room remodel the discipline matters most wherever the largest uninterrupted surface is — keep that inside the range and every smaller decision gets easier.
Dimensions that do not move
A style choice never overrides the geometry. Whatever the finishes, the work still has to hold: Keep seating within 8ft of each other or the room stops holding a conversation. Build joinery to 18in deep flanking a chimney breast — deeper and it projects past the breast awkwardly. Leave a 32in route through the room that does not pass between the seating and the fire.
Lighting
Warm and low, from lamps and pendants at several heights. Nothing overhead and nothing cool. The single most common living room fault is one central pendant. Replace it with four or five low-output sources at different heights — a floor lamp by each seat, a picture light, something on a shelf — and put the lot on one dimmed circuit.
Where it usually goes wrong
The style breaks on cool greys, matching furniture sets, bare walls in an otherwise layered room. Independent of any style, this project is most often let down by a television mounted above the fire, too high to watch comfortably. joinery built deeper than the chimney breast so the wall reads as lumpy.
If the space is tight
Removing a chimney breast is the one structural move that reliably transforms a small living room, because it returns two alcoves' worth of wall and lets furniture sit flat. It is also the one people regret skipping. The walls and the ceiling planes. Boho needs surfaces that accept hanging — rails, hooks, beams — far more than it needs a particular finish.
Questions
- Does Bohemian work for a small living room?
- Removing a chimney breast is the one structural move that reliably transforms a small living room, because it returns two alcoves' worth of wall and lets furniture sit flat. It is also the one people regret skipping. Bohemian is helped by that, since layered textiles, plants everywhere, and no matching set anywhere.
- Which surface matters most in a bohemian living room?
- The walls and the ceiling planes. Boho needs surfaces that accept hanging — rails, hooks, beams — far more than it needs a particular finish.
- Can I see this on my own living room?
- Yes. Upload a photo and the Studio remodels it in Bohemian while holding your walls, windows and camera angle exactly where they are. New accounts get 4 credits and a Standard run costs 4, so there is a full render before anything is paid for.
- What ruins a bohemian scheme?
- Usually cool greys and matching furniture sets.