Scandinavian interior design is recognized by its minimalism, neutral colors, natural materials, and simple lines providing a clean, modern look. It is not a cookie cutter style. There is room to make choices that allow you to reflect your own style.
16 Scandinavian Living Room Designs that are Inviting and Trendy
The minimalism of a Scandi style living room is not barren. It is uncluttered, open, and inviting. It emphasizes the function of Scandinavian living room furniture so that your living room fulfills all the needs of your family and provides space as well. The minimalism and functionality of Scandinavian interior design also makes it budget friendly.
Scandinavian decor uses a neutral palette of black, white, gray, and beige with the possible addition of soft pastel blues and pinks. It is not a sharp contrasting use of black and white but a use blended with the other colors. White is the main color used, and it gives the living room a bright, well-lighted look.
The natural materials of Scandinavian decor include wood, rattan, cotton, wool, and fur, providing a warm, welcoming vibe. Scandinavian countries are known for cold winters, so having wool or fur throws as part of the home decor is yet another functional feature of a Scandi style living room. Natural fiber cording may also be used to create knotted and woven furniture and home decor. Plants and flowers are used to add a bit of nature.
The simple lines of Scandinavian living room furniture are not just vertical and horizontal lines creating geometric shapes. The furniture can feature curved lines adding a soft, sophisticated design element to your living room.
To help you create your best Scandinavian living room, we are providing products and home decoration suggestions for you to consider as you select the items for your living room. Our suggestions will show you where you can make choices that stay true to the Scandi style but also allow your living room to be individualized so that you have a room that reflects your tastes and style.
1. Inviting Scandi Corner Reading Nook
This cozy reading corner is arranged to create a secondary focal point in your living room. It is an example of using minimal functional items to create a sophisticated look in one area of the room. The base for arrangement is a round rattan chair. This chair illustrates that a piece of furniture with a simple, basic, but unexpected shape can create interest in a room. The chair itself invites you to sit down, fold your legs, and read a book. A fur throw, pillow, reading material, slippers, and framed photograph finish the area, making this a budget-friendly display. Place this display by a window, add a hanging lamp, and you can read day or night. The fur throw is not only decorative but also handy when the temperatures get colder.
2. Creating a Warm Scandi Style Living Room
This inviting living room provides an example of how to combine all the elements of Scandinavian style to create a warm and sophisticated decor. The two major elements are the white walls and the gray sectional sofa. The area rug provides a background that pulls everything together. A coffee table and several other tables are placed around the room. Accessories are simple and inexpensive. They include a throw, pillows, plants, flowers, jars of twigs, and stacks of books. Planning your wall treatment is the key to creating the best Scandinavian living room. To create visual depth, choose a white paint with a creamy tint. Use a flat paint on the ceiling, matte or eggshell on the wall, and semi-gloss for the trim.
3. Adding a Bit of Color
This room is similar to the previous room with but with fewer items, and yet it is still visually interesting. One difference between the two rooms is in the look of the sectional sofas. Comparing the sofas allows you to see that a variety of materials are possible in Scandinavian living room furniture. The sofa in the previous room is covered with traditional fabric upholstery. This room has a smoother upholstery, providing an indication that a leather sofa could also be used in Scandinavian decor. In addition, a pop of color has been blended in with the pastel pink pillows. The touch of pink is noticeable without being overdone.
4. Minimal Modern Mixed With a Classic Masterpiece
Featuring a great blend of styles, this example is among the best Scandinavian living rooms, displaying how minimal design can be interesting. It features a very modern corner sofa with the unique focus on one other element, a version of the classic masterpiece, A Young Girl Reading. Combining traditional style artwork with modern furnishings is unexpected, but it works because the large unfinished area reduces the traditional style of the artwork. The artwork also adds color to the room. With the addition of few other accessories, the combination of the two styles is perfect.
5. Personalize Your Scandi Style Living Room
This awesome idea is budget-friendly and creates a personalized focal point in your living room using minimal elements. It is perfect for traditional-sized rooms and creates the best Scandinavian living room for small spaces. The focal point is easily created by placing the sofa with pillows and a throw under a shelf where you can display favorite family photos. Using wall space instead of adding a table to a room to create photo displays makes good use of floor space in small rooms. The potentially inexpensive variety of elements in the room provide a touch of professional home decoration while keeping you within a family-friendly budget.
6. Minimal Can Equal More Room and Storage
With all the elements in this room, it may seem hard to call it minimal. However, it actually has only two major pieces of furniture — the sectional sofa and the media console. The sectional sofa actually provides more seating than any other combination of furniture, and it also provides more unbroken open space in the room. The media console provides needed storage space. With the major pieces of furniture reduced to two, there is more room to add decorative pieces and still leave an open area, even with the large window and two radiators.
7. Choosing Furniture to Fit a Grouping
The Nathan James Amalia table is a good choice to include in a Scandi style living room. It is only 18 inches in diameter and 18 inches high, so it will fit in a minimal reading group that is comprised of a chair with a pillow and a throw. Add some decor items such as plants, photographs, a hanging lamp or a floor lamp, and place the display by a window for an inexpensive secondary focal point. Creating the best Scandanavian living room is that easy. You decide that you want a reading nook similar to the first image. Then, you select the individual elements, and you can create a similar space with a different look because of the Scandanavian living room furniture you choose.
8. Choosing Artwork That Complements Scandinavian Decor
As in the previous examples, artwork chosen for the best Scandinavian living room has a minimal design focus such as the photographs of individuals. It maintains the color palette, possibly featuring black and white only, and it is generally modern in style. The Turquoise Triangles Wall Art is a cool art choice. You can use the print to pull the turquoise into the color palette for the room, repeating it in the pillows and the throw, and even possibly finding a throw with a similar diamond pattern.
9. Easily Change Your Wall Treatment
Self-stick, removable wall decals and wall paper is an awesome idea that allows you to easily change the look of a wall and your room. When you decide to change it again, the wall paper is easily removed. This Ink Stain design is a very dramatic and artistic design that would be hard for most people to achieve. It gives the term “wall art” new meaning. It also is less expensive than repainting or redecorating. The Ink Stain design catches the eye, but it doesn’t overpower the furniture arrangement in front of it. This could in part be due to the shelf display that holds its own in the midst of the Ink Stain design.
10. Budget-friendly Set of Three Geometric Prints
This set of three prints adds three shades from pink to burgundy. Touches of these colors can be added elsewhere with the pillows, the throw, and other accessories to help create the best Scandinavian living room. Even better, instead of buying a three piece set of framed art, you are buying the digital file that you can print at home or have printed. So, if you only want to display one or two of the prints, you are not paying for the matting and framing of the additional prints. Also, if you already have a frame you want to use, you are not paying for frames you don’t need.
11. Selecting Scandinavian Living Room Furniture
The Jellyfish pendant lamp is another example of choosing individual elements that make Scandinavian interior design unique to your living room. Scandinavian decor is not cookie cutter decor. It provides plenty of opportunity for you to individualize your living room decor. With the understanding of what comprises Scandinavian decor, you can make a general layout for your living room, such as a sofa grouping in one space and a reading nook in another space. Once you have an idea of the elements you want, then, you can look for cool pieces that are in your budget to create the best Scandinavian living for your home.
12. Blending the Home Decor Items You Choose
Most rugs are background and tie a room together. If you choose a bold item, such as this Scandinavian Retro Diamond Geometric Grey and Gold area rug, you have to avoid other elements that will fight for attention. You can add a little of the gold color, but keep it at a minimum. You can also search for a throw, pillow, or artwork with a design similar to the rug. However, when you select a large piece, such as this rug, that is so bold and attention-getting, you should allow it to be the focal point and let the rest of the room be a frame or background that visually supports the rug.
13. Choose Some Furniture as Background
As you are selecting furniture and accessories for your living room, do not look for stand-out pieces for every item. That would create too many focal points, and make your room visually confusing. Depending on the size of your room, the size of the items, and the boldness of the items, you will probably want no more than three special items in your living room, and possibly only one if it is like the previous rug. However, other pieces, such as this mid-century modern coffee table, should add style to the room while blending with the rest of the decor.
14. Sofas Can Fill a Supporting Role
Sofas are a major piece of furniture in living rooms, but they can provide a supporting role in a focal point display. This arrangement, that includes the Christopher Knight Home Angelina mid-century- modern sofa, is a great example. It is a stylish sofa that provides visual support for the unique, framed, circular, hanging shelf above it. Because of its uniqueness, the circular shelf draws your eye to it, and the larger sofa visually balances the shelf without a visual conflict. This helps create a primary focal point that contributes to this room being a best Scandinavian living room.
15. Media Consoles Add Storage Space
When you think of traditional Scandinavian homes, you may not think of media consoles or even electronics, but everyone adapts to modern life. Media consoles can help create space in your living room by providing storage space. Opting for a media console with shelves, such as this Nathan James Wesley Scandinavian Media Console, helps you easily locate and organize items you use in the living room. So don’t ban the TV and the media console from your Scandi style living room. Welcome the media console for its extra storage space and decorative display area in a beautiful piece of furniture, and enjoy the time in your living room watching TV.
16. Modern Art Coffee Table as Focal Point
This modern glass-topped coffee table with its wire mesh base will definitely be a focal point. Items around it such as the media console, the sofa, and the rug should blend and support it. However, you could still have two more secondary focal points. They could be a lamp or hanging lamp, wall art, or small grouping, such as a reading nook. Since this table could be considered industrial style, you could add a few more industrial style items in the other focal points. That would individualize your living room and create a room that is a best Scandinavian living room.
16 Super Trendy Scandinavian Living Rooms with a Sophisticated Style
To create your own best Scandinavian living room, study the images and the elements of Scandinavian interior design. Overall, Scandinavian design is considered minimalistic. It uses fewer furnishings, so it is budget-friendly but not barren. The furnishings are stylish, but more importantly, they are functional. It uses neutral colors, which are white, grey, black, and beige, blended into a soft palette with a possible touch of color added, such as a pastel blue or pink. Since walls are generally white, selecting your wall treatment is easy. Simple lines are featured, including curved lines. Natural materials are a huge focus, including wood, rattan, cotton, wool, and fur. Natural elements also include plants, flowers, and twigs.
To create this look in your living room, study your room and decide what groupings you want, such as a conversation area or a reading area. Make a list of the furnishings you want, such as a sofa, chair, media console, lamps, tables, or hassocks, and look for up to three that could be used as focal points, Select the rest of the furnishings to blend and support the focal point items. Add pillows, a throw, some wall art, and other decorative items. If you want a touch of color, choose some items that add color. Since you are building your room by adding individual piece, you can easily stay within your budget. When you are done, you will have the best Scandinavian living room that reflects your tastes.