Designing a living room is typically one of the most challenging rooms in the home to style well. With the need for an inviting atmosphere that doesn’t skimp on style and taste, it’s easy to pressure yourself to get this room just so. But, whether you’re designing your new living room from scratch or are looking to revamp your current space, have you considered incorporating the edgy elegance of black into the room? Black living rooms are a dramatic statement, and if bold and beautiful is the interior design you’re looking for, black living room ideas may be perfect for you. From painting a single wall black to going all out in the dark colour, here are 12 beautiful black living room ideas that will help you instantly fall in love with this colour.
Delving into black living room ideas can be intimidating. So, avoid too much drama and start small by painting just a single wall black. Black can easily create a bold, dark and dramatic space, but you don’t have to let this atmosphere infiltrate your room if you just paint one wall black. You can paint the rest a complementary colour, such as white, and use lovely, light colours for your furniture, like lime greens, yellows, beiges and soft greys. Add plenty of pictures and personal touches, and you’ll have a bright, airy space that you have boosted with the black hue.
Of course, if you’re feeling brave, you could go the complete opposite way and go all out straight from the beginning with an all-black living room. First, you could colour the walls and even the ceiling black to embrace the use of this monochromatic hue. Then, you can finish the look by adding tastefully selected pieces of black furniture, such as modern black accent chairs, or a wingback chair for a cohesive, contemporary look. Naturally, if you do choose to make the walls and furniture black, you’ll need to add a few other colours to the palette to pull it off. Try pairing this shade with pops of complementary colours such as white, gold, beige, grey and lush greens to pull off an all-black living room.
Only have a small living room? Believe it or not, an all-black colour palette can work wonders in a small space. The colour can help make a room feel and look bigger since it blurs the space’s hard edges and alludes to more space.
Read More: How To Style A Black Painted Ceiling
Naturally, splashing a little black around or painting the whole room black may be too little or much for your taste. Well, you can pair the dramatic shade with white for some beautifully monochromatic black living room ideas. White and black is a classic combination, but finding the right balance is vital in a living room. The best way to do it is to try and use just as much black as white. For example, you could paint your walls black with a white ceiling, floor and accents such as mirror frames or fireplaces.
However, a monochrome colour palette can feel cold and uninviting. To brighten up these black living room ideas, make sure to add plenty of wooden touches to your furniture and decoration. Choose oak, walnut and pine woods to boost your elegant monochromatic space and give it a rustic appeal.
Black is the perfect backdrop to almost any colour on the colour wheel. So, if you prefer bright, vibrant shades, you should consider painting your walls black. Pairing vivid furniture with black walls will help those bright colours stand out better, and the combination will balance the colours out for a perfectly harmonious space. If you’d prefer to break up the dark colour on the walls, you could add a few small, contemporary mirrors or a gallery wall of your favourite artwork to make the black feel less dominating.
If you’ve been blessed with beautiful, polished floorboards as the flooring in your sitting room, put them to good use for your black living room ideas. You can transform smooth wooden floorboards at the weekend with some floor paint and a couple of hours. Naturally, you’ll have to sand and prepare the floorboards first. But the results are effortlessly cool and undoubtedly unique. Plus, a black floor is definitely practical and will hide plenty of sins. You can still make the room feel cosy and inviting by adding a soft, bright rug and choosing lovely, bright colours for your décor or furniture. But you can link the black floor to the rest of the room by including scatter cushions and prints that incorporate the shade. Find out how best to paint your floorboards here.
Black can quickly become an all-encompassing colour, especially in a living room. Ideally, you want your living room to be an inviting and open atmosphere. So, it’s essential to strike the right balance with your black living room ideas. The best way to do this is by keeping the ceiling light and bright. To add a touch of the dramatic without overdoing it, you can paint your walls black from the top of the skirting boards to stylish dado rails. By leaving the top of your walls and ceiling white, you will have the perfect cohesive space.
Additionally, you should keep accents of the room, such as window frames and picture frames, the same colour as the ceiling to tie in the shade and keep the room looking bright and airy.
A full black can look too cold and harsh in some spaces, or maybe it’s just a bit too much for you. If this is the case, you can choose to use dark grey as the primary colour of your walls and make black an accent colour instead. This combination will create a softer, more cosy look, mainly if you use lighter shades of grey for the furniture and décor. Then, add some tasteful black touches, such as black side tables, light fixtures, decorative statues, shelves, or vases for fresh flowers. With an open or faux fireplace, you’ll have a classic farmhouse feel that’s warm and inviting.
However, if dramatic is your middle name, then maybe you should go for a more contemporary design in your living room. Modern interior design styles favour minimalism and sleek, slim lines over bulky maximalist choices. Naturally, black is the perfect laid-back, cool counterpart to this style. So, choose furniture that reflects these slimline, daring ideals – think mid-century modern or minimalist style. Paint your walls black, keep the floors light (grey works fantastically) and add all your modern touches for the perfect contemporary living room.
Black living room ideas don’t have to focus on plain black walls. There are plenty of gorgeous black patterned wallpaper designs out there that will add elegance to a space and give you some colours to incorporate into your design palette. For example, if you choose black wallpaper decorated with pink and red flowers, you can use these shades in the rest of your decoration to bring everything elegantly together. Of course, there are so many other designs besides black floral wallpaper – find a style that works for you and flaunt it! You can paper one or two walls in this wallpaper and paint the rest a matching colour, or paper all the walls and tie the furniture into the colour scheme for the perfect living space.
Black is not just the colour of gloom and doom. Black represents elegance, beauty and sophistication. So, use this representation to your advantage and create a living room that is all of these things too. Put together a beautifully balanced monochromatic living room and add some charming, elegant finishing touches. For example, you could hang a statement chandelier, add some fluffy modern rugs or bring in crushed velvet furniture pieces. Find some sleek furniture pieces and accessories, pair these with your black living room ideas, and you’ll have a beautiful sitting room to welcome all your guests into with pride.
Industrial design is an interior style that’s consistently popular, no matter what other styles come and go. Fortunately, black fits perfectly with the industrial design trend. Pairing stylish black metal with smooth, oaky wood shades creates the perfect industrial, warehouse-style theme while still providing a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Plus, if all-out black isn’t for you, the industrial style embraces touches of black, such as black table legs with a wooden tabletop, black cushions, black patterned rugs and black cabinets.
Incorporating black into your living room colour palette may be intimidating at first. But, if you embrace the elegance and sophistication of this beautiful colour, you can put it to great use. Whether you prefer a bold, dramatic palette of all black or want just touches of black throughout the room, this colour is for every taste. So, put some of our black living room ideas to the test in your home – we’re sure you won’t be disappointed.
Do you have any other black living room ideas that we’ve missed? Leave your design ideas for us to peruse to below!
Office and marketing manager for Sloane & Sons Stylish Chairs, who sell a range of high-quality tub chairs, accent chairs and more.