How to Choose Wall Art for Your Living Room

While some people have a natural flair for choosing complementary and aesthetic works of art for their houses, others might struggle with selecting the right ones. Choosing wall art is a way to express yourself, beautify your space, and make a statement, so it’s important to get it right. While the key to choosing wall art you are happy with is to stay true to self-expression and select pieces you enjoy looking at, there are some simple tips and tricks you can follow to make sure that you find the perfect ones for you.

Here are some wall art tips and tricks.

Make it your own

Just like every person is unique, so is every house. Your house is more than just a building, it is an extension of yourself and reflects your values, desires, and experiences. When beginning the process, consider the walls of your living room as a blank canvas on which you will paint.

What do you hope to express with your art? What general mood or feel are you going for? Following your intuition and choosing art that simply speaks to you has obvious benefits, as the person who will be looking at them the most is you.

Determine the space you can use

However, we also want our wall art to speak to those who enter our house and any guests we have. To do so, you want to have art that looks professional, classy, and aesthetic. When decorating a house, always attempt to follow the principles of balance that are encompassed in the Eastern philosophy of feng shui.

Each piece must have its place and should be complementary to other pieces of art in the same room while also balancing them out. The first step in this process is to determine how much wall space you can use. If it’s a very large space, consider a dominating, large piece of art, while for smaller spaces you could go for more of a gallery-type feel with several smaller pieces. 

Work with what you already have

Before beginning a major interior design redecoration, consider the existing decor, furniture, and other aesthetics of the house first. If you already have some major existing themes, like blue, the ocean, romantic era, hot colors, or anything else, then try not to stray too far from that. This will lend an overall more cohesive and unified feel to your living space.  

However, sometimes having a living room that stands out from the rest of the house’s theme can be nice too. Whatever you choose, try to make it thematically fit and complement the rest of the house.

Consider a large centerpiece

The living room is an excellent place to make a statement about who you are and what is important to you. It is where guests will often go at first, and the family will spend a lot of time together there. Since there’s usually a lot of wall space combined with the central hub aspect of the living room, it’s the perfect place for a large, dramatic piece of art on the wall.

A large living room art piece is an inexpensive and easy way to immediately boost the sophistication and classiness of your house. It makes a bold, memorable statement, and offers a unique canvas to showcase something you find beautiful, a conversation piece, or a work of art you are passionate about. Putting an oversized piece above the couch and a complimentary gallery-style selection of pieces on a different wall is an excellent starting point for the living room.  

Vary textures and mediums

While you always want to remain consistent with your thematic elements, try to strive for variety between the actual pieces. High-gloss or glass-covered prints for a large central piece in the living room will allow light to bounce and reflect around the room, while some subtle oil paintings on the other side can balance that out. 

Consider mixing different mediums like watercolors, oils, collages, and photography, which each type in a different frame. This will create a more interesting experience for the viewer and add a level of care and sophistication to your choices.  

Complimentary colors

Within the world of interior design is an entire science of color, in which certain colors are more suited to being next to or around others, called complementary colors. Largely, it is based on the concept of selecting opposing or opposite colors to the primary one. When choosing artwork, try and determine a primary color for the living room, and base your next choices on the complimentary colors to that.  

For example, some of the most common complementary color sets are:

• Red and Green
• Blue and Orange
• Yellow and Purple

Wall art is an excellent way to express yourself and enhance your living area. A lot of time is spent in the living room, so follow these tips and select pieces you are passionate about, and you will have a living room that you love to be in!