A White Living Room: Decoration Tips

Although we like just about every interior decorating style, choosing white as your main living room decor color that will just about always go right.

Often, people avoid looking for new styles and stick to frameworks of dull, neutral colors. In the end, those colors make you feel calm and more balanced, so it makes sense, especially when it comes to rooms you spend a lot of time in. So, today we’re going to focus on how to decorate a white living room. 

Technically, white isn’t actually a color. In the truest sense, it’s the absence of color. But when you’re using white in interior design, it still has lots of different uses and tones.

There’s bluish whites, ice cold whites, and even pinkish whites. All these options will give you a lot of different ways to play with light and the depth of the space you’re decorating. 

Using white in decoration also gives you a clean, clear, and very contemporary color that goes well with all the rest. That’s why we want to focus entirely on white today, and we’re going to look specifically at the most important room of all. Keep reading to learn how to decorate your living room with white!

Decorating a white living room

Color schemes

The first step for this project is to choose a specific hue of white as your base. If you want your living room to look fresh and modern, you’ll want to choose a bluish white.

On the other hand, if you’d prefer a warmer setting, you should choose pinker or creamier tones of white. There are at least 15 different shades of white, so make sure you look through them before you decide.

Unless you’re going for a room that’s completely white, the next step is to choose the secondary color in your design scheme. Luckily, white goes well with all colors.

You should also choose the second color based on the atmosphere you’re trying to create. In this article, we’re going to focus on all the best neutral colors, in our opinion. 

Don’t be afraid of white

Some of you might be thinking about how non-practical white is, especially with furniture and fabrics. While it’s true that darker colors tend to age better, it’s also true that dark fabrics and furniture don’t hide dust and certain stains as well as softer tones do. 

So don’t be afraid of white couches and accessories! In the end, they all get dirty, but the white ones are easier to clean.

There are also some natural materials that can add more white to a room without needing to use paint or lacquer. Marble, for example, is perfect for these kinds of spaces.

Black and white living rooms

If you want a more eye-catching look, you can combine your white base with black. The key here is in how you balance it. A 50/50 mix of black and white looks extremely striking, dramatic, and elegant. 

You can spread the colors out between the ceiling and the walls, mix them in geometric or floral patterns on the floor or a rug, and split the rest between the furniture and curtains. You’ll always get a spectacular result. 

White and grey

If you want a calm space, we would recommend pale grey tones. They’re just two shades away from white, which makes for a harmonious, balanced, and welcoming environment. Soft grey tones are also seen as feminine.

If you’d prefer a darker grey, you only have to go a few notches up the color scale towards the more iron-like greys. The advantage of choosing a dark shade of grey is that it creates depth when you combine it with white, without being as dramatic as a black and white combination.

White and silver or white and gold

We absolutely love these combinations. They’re easy, don’t need much to work, but also give you originality, and the sense of luxury you want to convey in a living room.  Metallic colors always look gorgeous when you combine them with white.

Shades of silver are basically a fancier version of grey. Anything that comes in this color will work: silvery threads on your cushions, frames, chairs, etc…

When it comes to gold, the combinations are endless. You can go for super bright gold or worn bronze, either way, you can’t go wrong!

Living room accessories

Decorative accessories give a room life. You can use them to draw people’s eyes to the right place and make the space feel cohesive. We suggest following the same color scheme you’ve chosen for everything else and use that with the accessories too.

You can make some great contrasts with cushions and other accessories. Statues and sculptures are perfect for a white living room. Lacquer can also make things shine and reflect in a way that gives the room texture, just like a mirror.