Pictures in the living room above the sofa: what are they and how to choose?

The living room is the most public area in the house. The whole family gathers in it to spend time together. It is customary to receive friends in this room. The atmosphere in such a room should be hospitable, set in a positive mood. Furniture in the room and decor items should help create the right atmosphere in the room. To give the living room coziness and beauty, painting objects are used. Pictures placed in the living room above the sofa can decorate this room.

Even the darkest room can be made immediately brighter and more attractive if you hang a picture on the wall in the hall. Thanks to such decorative items, you can maintain harmony and proportion. When choosing a painting for the living room, you should take into account a number of features.

• In order not to bring disharmony into the room, you should not hang pictures of different styles on the walls. To create harmony, it is better to hang works of art on the wall in the same style or theme.
• Place pictures on wallpaper, plaster or paint. It is important that the surface of the wall has a light tone, and there is no bright, catchy pattern on the wallpaper and other surfaces.
• For framing, use frames that match the color of the furniture.

Oil paintings will adorn any room. They look especially beautiful in the living room. The most convenient place to place them will be a sofa, they can also be hung over the fireplace. In a modern interior, various paintings will be relevant, but more often still lifes or abstractions are hung in the living room. Meanwhile, other types will look good in a given room if they are selected in accordance with the chosen style and taking into account the color palette in the room.

In the living room above the sofa, watercolors will fit well. For rooms decorated in country style, provence and shabby chic, paintings depicting rural landscapes, still lifes and plants will be a good find. For retro style or pop art, paintings painted with acrylic paint are more often chosen. Acrylic canvases are more suitable for lovers of retro or pop art styles.

For high-tech or loft styles, posters or photo illustrations in metal frames are more suitable. Watercolors will help bring out the provincial décor, so choose them for rustic rooms.

Indoors, both one canvas and a whole gallery of canvases of different sizes and types will look organic. In addition, modular paintings can often be seen in the living room. These images, which represent a single drawing, divided into several canvases, allow you to transform a room. Such modular canvases are divided into diptych, triptych or polyptych. That is, there can be two, three or more segments in a composition.

Complex modular compositions are arranged in a certain way:

• in small rooms they hang the composition in one horizontal line;
• to add height, the segments are hung in the form of a vertical strip;
• in a puzzle way;
• chaotic.

To make the room seem visually spacious, brighter and more comfortable, it is important to choose correctly not only the color and furniture, but also decorative elements.

Correct placement of the canvas over the sofa will make this area stand out.

• Large paintings will help to visually hide the small size of the room. At the same time, works of art of small size will be inappropriate and simply "lost".
• For low rooms, use one or more vertical canvases placed above the sofa.
• Canvases hung horizontally will visually make the room wider.

The image on the canvas also plays a role. Medium-sized paintings will not affect the geometry of the living room. Large canvases or large images will visually reduce the volume of objects in the interior.

The size of the canvases should ideally match the size of the living room, as well as with the furniture dimensions. For city apartments, medium-sized canvases are more suitable. In rooms with high ceilings, vertical compositions will be appropriate. In this case, it is worth choosing a picture not of a square, but of a rectangular shape.

When choosing this kind of decor for a living room, it is important to choose the right proportion. Consider the following rules:

• the most suitable in terms of parameters are modular paintings, the size of which does not exceed 2/3 the size of the sofa;
• in a small living room, a picture up to 50 cm in size will look harmonious, compositions of several canvases up to 30 cm high will also look good;
• the presence of bulky canvases requires a lot of space around, so it is advisable to hang them in spacious rooms;
• in a small room, miniature compositions will be appropriate;
• in rooms with low ceilings, it is worth hanging compositions whose images are drawn vertically;
• large images that are applied horizontally will visually expand the room.

The choice of the plot is also very important; there should be no confusion in the living room. All images must be in the same style. You should not buy canvases of different styles, even if you really like them.

When choosing these works of art, take into account the style of the room... If a country or Provence style is chosen for the living room, you should pay attention to plots depicting flowers, landscapes, mills, etc.

In the modern direction of decor, photographs with various themes are used. It can be flowers, landscapes, animals, celebrities, and city views. The main thing is that all this should look harmonious and fit into the overall design concept.

The wall above the sofa can be a great place for family photos of different sizes and themes. You can create a family photo gallery. Printed family photos will remind you of the pleasant time spent with friends and family. To make such photos look organic, it is better to place them in the same frames and hang them over the sofa.

A large photograph of your favorite movie hero or a frame from a movie you like will look very unusual over the sofa. A picture in black and white looks very unusual in the living room, emphasizing the style of the room favorably. Thin aluminum frames will make the paintings seem more mysterious and enigmatic.

Photo wallpaper is also used to highlight the area above the sofa. Designers recommend choosing images in calm colors, without bright drawings.

When choosing a canvas for a living room, it is important to consider not only the size of the painting, but also what feelings it evokes. If contemplating a picture is not entirely pleasant, it is better not to acquire it, otherwise its presence may lead to a lack of energy and vitality. You should also avoid plots depicting military actions or any conflicts, otherwise it can introduce dissonance into the way of life.

Do not hang portraits of long-dead people over the sofa in the room., after all, according to Feng Shui, such images carry negative energy.

According to Chinese teaching neutral scenes should be hung in this room. For example, with images of nature, still lifes, flowers, etc.

In the event that the paintings will be located on the north side of the living room, in the "water zone", it is better to choose canvases depicting water landscapes. On the south side, it is better to hang posters depicting fire. If the sofa is on the east side, it is better to hang a canvas with a picture of a money tree or fish. This zone is able to attract money to the house.

Usually, the wall behind the sofa immediately attracts attention, because this area is located in the center of the room. Visitors will immediately pay close attention to the oversized oil painting. A canvas painted with oil paints is self-sufficient in itself, so a different decor will be out of place here.

You can hang works of art in a selected area in one line, if they are of equal size. The main thing is that the frames of the canvases are the same, and the picture itself has a similar plot. The color palette is also important, it should be the same or similar on the presented canvases.

If the canvases are of different sizes, it is important to hang them correctly. So, the largest picture is hung in the center, the rest of the images are hung in an orderly way, at their discretion.

For living rooms decorated in a classic style, an oil painting is more suitable.

Watercolors or pastels will look no less impressive. Thanks to such works, the room visually becomes less cluttered. Such canvases fit perfectly into the overall style of the living room.

By using the area behind the sofa to place a painting, you can instantly transform a room. Other decor items will help to make it cozier. Small shelves behind the sofa, with paintings, books or souvenirs, are also suitable for this.

To draw attention to the pictures, it is worth providing good lighting. Spot lighting devices will allow not only to focus all attention on the canvas, but also to make the room optically brighter and more spacious.

A triptych is a painting with a single storyline, divided into several segments. For many, this option can be an excellent design. It's easy to make a triptych yourself. Square-shaped segments of the same size will help optically make a narrow living room more spacious.

Images, unusual in their style, will add cheerfulness to the interior.

Irregularities and imperfections on the surface will help hide bright canvases, they focus on bright colors.

Dark walls are lightened with paintings in a contrasting color.

A small painting above the sofa will make the room more comfortable.

For information on how to hang a modular picture, see the next video.