A Designer Decorates a Small Living Room for Doting Grandparents
Durable fabrics, soft carpeting and tables too heavy to knock over ready this room for little ones
Helmick sells the petite leather side chairs through her design business. “They’re oddly comfortable for how small they are,” she says.
The side table between the two leather chairs is so heavy that it takes two adults to move it — which also makes it pretty impossible for little toddlers to tip over. The lamp is from the 1970s and heavy enough that it, too, would be difficult for children to knock over.
The 40-inch-diameter mirror reflects natural sunlight from the windows during the day, creating more light in the room. In the evenings, the mirror reflects the glow from the lamp for more nighttime lighting. “Light is the easiest way to make a space feel bigger,” Helmick says.
The designer had the footstool in front of the chair upholstered with a scrap of a kilim.
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The side table between the two leather chairs is so heavy that it takes two adults to move it — which also makes it pretty impossible for little toddlers to tip over. The lamp is from the 1970s and heavy enough that it, too, would be difficult for children to knock over.
The 40-inch-diameter mirror reflects natural sunlight from the windows during the day, creating more light in the room. In the evenings, the mirror reflects the glow from the lamp for more nighttime lighting. “Light is the easiest way to make a space feel bigger,” Helmick says.
The designer had the footstool in front of the chair upholstered with a scrap of a kilim.
Find side chairs in the Houzz Shop
The greige sofa is a custom piece upholstered in Revolution fabric, which resists staining. Helmick chose warm undertones for the sofa that work with the room’s existing cool gray walls — the clients didn’t want to change the paint color — and that warm up the space.
Orange accent pillows bring more color into the room, while patterned gray-and-white ones echo the pattern of the rug. Helmick chose a wool rug that would be soft underfoot (or knee) for a crawling baby. She prefers wool rugs because they can be steam-cleaned; rugs with viscose in the blend, she says, would be discolored by steam-cleaning.
Both pieces of art came from a local vintage shop. The coffee table is made from reclaimed wood. In fact, the wood on all the pieces shown in this photo is distressed, so if somebody bangs a toy on it, any resulting damage won’t ruin the piece. The console cabinet on the right makes a convenient place to tuck away baskets of toys. “I tend to do enclosed storage in tight spaces,” Helmick says. “Baskets of toys can go inside, and it’s instantly clean.”
How to Decorate a Small Living Room
Orange accent pillows bring more color into the room, while patterned gray-and-white ones echo the pattern of the rug. Helmick chose a wool rug that would be soft underfoot (or knee) for a crawling baby. She prefers wool rugs because they can be steam-cleaned; rugs with viscose in the blend, she says, would be discolored by steam-cleaning.
Both pieces of art came from a local vintage shop. The coffee table is made from reclaimed wood. In fact, the wood on all the pieces shown in this photo is distressed, so if somebody bangs a toy on it, any resulting damage won’t ruin the piece. The console cabinet on the right makes a convenient place to tuck away baskets of toys. “I tend to do enclosed storage in tight spaces,” Helmick says. “Baskets of toys can go inside, and it’s instantly clean.”
How to Decorate a Small Living Room
Partially visible on the left side of this photo is an orange glider upholstered in polyester velvet — a great place to rock fussy kids.
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More on Houzz
Read other stories about living room decor
Find a pro
Shop for products
Living Room at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with grandchildren
Size: 176 square feet (16 square meters)
Location: Portland, Maine
Designer: Vanessa Helmick of Fiore Interiors
The homeowners moved into their 1850s home in Portland, Maine, to help out with grandkids who live nearby. So everything in their living room needed to be toddler-friendly and easy to clean. They hired designer Vanessa Helmick to decorate the room, and she selected furnishings to maximize space and create an easy traffic flow.
For example, the seating provides ample places to sit without taking up a large footprint. “There aren’t any arms on the furniture wider than 3 inches,” Helmick says. Smaller arms — as opposed to, say, wide rolled arms — save space and help keep the room from feeling overstuffed.
In another space-saving strategy, Helmick chose round instead of square or rectangular shapes for the coffee table and two side tables. “They visually look like they take up a lot of space, but because they’re round instead of square, they actually take up less square footage,” she says.
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