5 Inexpensive Ideas To Update Your Living Room

In this post: Here are 5 + brilliant and inexpensive ideas to update your living room. These are easy, updated decorating ideas you can do and lots of interior design inspiration too.

Does your living room need a little refresh? Has it looked the same way for a few years? You can achieve an updated look without a complete overhaul. It’s not always feasible to replace everything whenever decorating trends shift, or we grow weary of our current decor. Instead, let’s focus on strategic improvements that will infuse a breath of fresh and stylish air into our living spaces!

Affiliate links included. See our Discloser Policy. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Here are 5 budget-friendly concepts to refresh your living room effortlessly!

Get Rid Of All Clutter

Let’s talk about two kinds of clutter.

A living room is called a living room for a very good reason. We live in it! And living can be messy! One of the best ideas to update your living room is to get rid of clutter and make everything look neat and clean. This is such an easy thing to do, and it’s free.

We live in these spaces, and so does our family. And there are guests and friends and pets too! No wonder things in our homes don’t stay neat!

All these people and pets equal the potential for clutter. So every night before you go to bed, make a point of getting rid of any clutter, throwing trash away, reorganizing things, folding throws, and giving the pillows a good fluff! This is a very savvy tip and will keep that clutter bug from living permanently in your living and family room!

You can find this tip and other tried and true things to do before you hit the bed each night here, Smart Things To Do Before You Go To Bed.

A Second Kind Of Clutter

Did you know that most home decorators overdecorate? Are you susceptible to this kind of decor clutter?

How can we update our living rooms when it is too full of stuff!

Overdecorating is a problem many decorators don’t really pay attention to or see. Too many pieces of furniture and too many accent pieces, and too much layering can have a negative effect on our rooms! It costs nothing to remove a few things from your living room and start decorating with a LESS IS BEST attitude! This will certainly update a room!

HOW TO LAYER DECOR IN A ROOM is a must-read if you are an overdecorator because one of the overdecorating culprits is over-layering! The two posts above will go a long way to help you declutter a room and give you ideas to update your living room.

And if you think you might be over decorating, this post will help you, THE OVER DECORATING DILEMMA. It explains why we overdecorate and how to stop putting too much stuff in a room, and more!

So, take a look at your living room and try removing a few things. What a difference it will make.

Rearrange The Furniture

I call rearranging furniture playing musical chairs. This is a fabulous and inexpensive living room idea!

I’m forever thinking about ways to create new looks in our rooms. And swapping a piece of furniture from one room and putting it in another is the easiest thing to do for a fresh look!

I have a store of furnishings in the basement, so I like to bring a piece of furniture or rug or a table lamp or even bookshelves up from the basement and give it a turn in the living room! Even in a small space like our living room, changing some of the furniture is not hard.

If the layout of your room does not allow for changing large furnishings, then focus on and change out the accent decor!

Here is a list of my favorite furniture and accent pieces I love to swap and rearrange

• cushions and pillows
• artwork (big or small)
• picture frames
• a side table
• throw pillows
• curtains
• an accent chair or armchair
• a small bookshelf
• floor lamp
• free standing shelves
• small console
• bench
• stools
• baskets
• bowls
• trays
• faux flowers

I have lots of living room ideas for you when it comes to rearranging things in the living room!

I like to think our home has a casual, easy-going elegance! Pottery Barn meets Ballard Design meets Birch Lane. And my goal is to give the rooms in our home lots of my personality! I like the warmth and welcomeness of Pottery Barn, the absolute beauty and timeless look of Ballard Design, and the comfortable feel and unique pieces of Birch Lane. My style is a true mash-up of Transitional styling!

Everything I buy has to fit my neutral color palette, and my color palette includes lots of texture!

One the best interior design secrets that make moving furniture and other decor from one room to another so effortlessly is a consistent room color palette! Everything in your living room must be filtered through your color palette. This helps makes swapping out furniture and accents so much easier!

Let’s talk about what I rearranged in the living room. We will talk more about a living room’s color palette later in the post.

Let’s get back to playing musical chairs.

I did not rearrange what I call foundational furnishing. Things like my couch, chairs, buffet, or chest.

Because I have a small living room the living room design had to stay pretty much the same. I’ve tried moving the sofa around but where it is makes the most sense. Same goes for the white buffet! An open floor plan can be a bear to decorate.

Here’s a quick list of the things I swapped or rearranged in my living room for today’s post. Remember, I bought nothing. I just moved things around!

• brought the end table up from the basement
• created a more defined focal point on the mantel
• changed out the pillow to bring in more texture and a richer color palette
• created an overall richer color palette using a bit of black and more caramel
• added a basket from over our bed to the fireplace wall
• changed up lots of accent decor

All the things I used to update our living room I already had. So easy and it did not cost a thing!

Hang New Artwork And Other Pieces

If you are looking for ways to update your living room, make sure to think about hanging up some artwork or a tasteful gallery wall, or an attractive mirror.

Bring artwork and other things into your living room to update its look.

After the black end table came up from the basement, I remembered I had two very dramatic pieces of fern art. So they came up from the basement too!

Adding new art with a big dose of black in it really changed my living room!

I replaced smaller light color ferns (I love ferns) artwork with these bigger and bolder pieces of art.

I’m a huge fan of symmetry so I hung each fern art on either side of our living room clock. Symmetry is one of the easiest ways to create order and beauty in a room.

You might like to learn how to use symmetry in your home. You can read THE DECOR ELEMENT OF BALANCE. We will talk a lot about symmetry when we talk about balance!

Rethinking mirrors is another way to update a room. Choose a mirror that works with your decor and be very careful to consider its placement. You want a mirror to reflect something lovely in your room!

That is why I am not a fan of hanging a mirror over a tall fireplace mantel. It often will reflect the ceiling! And a ceiling has nothing very special going on to reflect. Place your mirrors so they reflect all the prettiness in your living room.

Mirrors add sparkle and shape and life and light and texture to a room. So make sure you find a place for a mirror in the living room.

Here are more kinds of artwork you might consider…

• architectural pieces
• baskets
• hanging wallpaper or upholstery panels up on your walls in frames
• a picture gallery
• hanging other objects to make a gallery
• using pretty storage boxes for updating shelves on a wall
• leaning artwork on a pieces of furniture or a wall to be used as a backdrop to layer other decor
• more

Pay Attention To Your Living Room’s Focal Point

Your focal point in the living room just might be crying out for an update. If you have a fireplace and mantel in your living room or family room this is probably your focal point.

If you update a focal point your whole room will look transformed! A focal point is usually the first thing someone looks at when they come into your living room! So make is fabulous.

You might like to read about FOCAL POINT TIPS FOR BEAUTIFUL ROOMS. This post will help you create an amazing focal point for your living room.

The focal point in our living room is the fireplace. I change the decor on it often, usually to work with the season or holiday at hand.

But since I changed up the end table and added new artwork on the wall above the white buffet, I decided to change the white tobacco basket and replace it with the largest of three baskets hanging above my bed.

This gave the fireplace a bit of color and more noticeable texture, so it would stand out a bit more.

I also changed the chunky wooden candles I had on the mantel to a trio of bronze candles on either side of the gather sign and added warm brunt gold candlesticks.

And because it is late spring I added a trio of ferns in interesting pottery planters.

My focal point is very symmetrical. Things on one side of the fireplace mirror things on the other side. Symmetry creates beauty and our eyes love beauty!

What is the focal point in your living room? Can it be updated a bit? Try creating a symmetrical focal point.

What If My Television Is Above My Fireplace?

I get this question all the time. Today it is very acceptable for a tv to be above a focal point fireplace. And while most of us don’t love a big black hole to be above our mantel, it is just a fact of modern life.

Think of my gather sign as a tv. I decorate on either side of the sign and sometimes under it too!

Here are some updated tips for decorating a mantel with a television above it…

• decorate on either side of the mantel
• try not to overdecorate the mantel
• no little items on the mantel- read LESS IS BEST DECORATING!
• if there is room between your mantel and tv add a trio of plants or a nod to the season like pumpkins
• put something decorative above the television
• buy a tv with a decorative frame around it that projects artwork – while these tv’s are pricy they are amazing! See my pick here.

Amp Up Your Color Palette

Adding a new color or changing up your color palette a bit is a fun way to update your living room!

We often think of adding or editing things in our living room to update it. But working with the colors in our living room can make a huge difference!

Color is a very important thing when it comes to psychology and decorating. Color can actually make us feel things! Like being happy or moody or calm or excited! And one of the most important things about choosing a color palette for your living room is to decide how you want your room to feel!

So choose colors that match the feeling you want your room to exude!

HOW TO CHOOSE A COLOR PALETTE FOR A ROOM OR WHOLE HOME is a must-read! This post is one big aha moment after another!

Since I added a little black to my very light neutral room as well as a bit more caramel I wanted to make sure I did not take away from the light and airy look I like so much.

However, I did want my living room to feel more grounded and richer. So how did I do this without creating a new color palette? Easy!

Here is my home’s color palette:

These colors, plus white and a touch of black, make up our whole home’s color scheme.

Because it is such a neutral color palette, I use different tints and tones of a shade or two to give a room interest.

For the living room, I changed the color palette ratios a bit. Instead of just a touch of black that can be found in the rug I added more black by bringing in the artwork, end table, and a few accents.

And instead of a little bit of caramel I used a bit more of that color too.

The color palette is the same but in a different way!

Because my walls are white and so are my foundational furnishing the room still looks bright and light!

HOW TO CHOOSE A COLOR PALETTE FOR A ROOM OR WHOLE HOUSE will explain this in depth.

It will explain how to add a pop of color to your living room too. And this can certainly update your look!

More Ideas To Update Your Living

Here are more ideas fun for updating your living room without breaking the bank…

• paint a pice of furniture
• create a vignette on a coffee table or other flat surface
• use a pretty fabric to sew pillows, slipcovers or have something reupholsetered
• textiles are your best friend- lean how to mix and match them in your living room
• add different pillow in new arrangments on your couch and chairs
• use accessories in interesting ways
• add flowers and plants to your living room
• group family photos (not considered decor clutter) in similar frames on an end table
• think about replacing dated window treatments with simple linen curtain on metal rods and rungs

There are plenty of easy and pretty ideas to update a living room that are inexpensive. Choose a few and get started! Happy decorating!

YOU MIGHT LIKE THESE DECORATING POSTS…

THE BEST LIVING ROOM DECORATING IDEAS

TIPS FOR TOTALLY UPDATING YOUR LIVING ROOM

FIVE BIG DECORATINGMISTAKES AND HOW TO FIX THEM

HOW TO DECORATE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE