Living room design ideas - in pictures

Dark vintage: Gunship grey is a great foil for decorative antiques. Try Farrow & Ball's Downpipe for a similar shade. Rose & Grey sells similar vintage leather furniture, and for a lampshade like this one, try BeauVamp at Not On The High Street. Or go to Zoe Darlington. Photograph: Rachael Smith

White floorboards and oyster coloured walls give this lounge its washed-and-wan look. All Farrow & Ball's colours come in floor paint and this is a great way of giving your lounge an easy breezy look inexpensively. Be warned, though: exposing floorboards can create gale force 10 draughts beneath the feet. For a rose sheepskin in keeping with the one on that pouffe, try Debenhams’ Mongolian sheep wool cushion. Photograph: Holly Jolliffe/Guardian

Architect Helena Rivera lives in this Victorian house in south London with her husband and two young sons. The 50s Penguin armchairs, by Dutch designer Theo Ruth for Artifor, were a vintage find (try The Modern Warehouse for similar). Rivera re-covered them in 1950s style Kvadrat fabric. 'The chairs are designed as two interlocking pieces and the 50s sofa is Danish,' says Rivera. 'Our house is quite small, which forced me to look at more compact furniture – Danish 50s pieces are a natural fit.' Skandium has similar smaller sofas such as the Poet by One Collection or EJ180 by Erik Jørgensen. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Rough and ready surfaces, reclaimed objects and quirky touches are the hallmarks of this small Victorian house in Brighton. In the living room, the chairs and sofa are covered in old kilims – SCP sells vintage ones. A table, made for owner, Stacy Sirk by Baileys combines a vintage mirror top, edged with fluorescent strip, with a dustbin. The photographs are by Sirk’s father, mounted in street-found frames and displayed on narrow shelves made from reclaimed floorboards. eframe has an online service to create your own bespoke frame and mount. Photograph: Holly Jolliffe

It’s hard to believe that, not long ago, this light, bright house was a couple of dank, interconnected ­bedsits spread across two floors; before that, it was a garage. But now it’s a glorious living space in the heart of Camden, north London. For factory lights like these, try Retrouvius or Trainspotters. Photograph: Sophia Evans/other

Painted brick is great for adding texture to a room and dark grey is the perfect foil for bright accent colours, like that red task light on the wall. Photograph: Rachael Smith

By choosing warm colours and materials – particularly orange, gold, yellow, red, pink, teak and exposed brick – the owners have infused this lounge with cheerful zing. Sofas like these can be found at Ikea in the Karlstad range. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Olivia Brown’s terrace house in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, is a home of quirky contrasts. It mixes rich colour and neutrals, vintage furniture with designer paint and wallpaper, and is filled with flea market finds, the dustier and scruffier the better. Brown, a sculptor, spends most of her spare time rummaging through car boot sales and antiques fairs. As a result, home renovation is an organic process, coming together as and when objects are bought. Photograph: Rachael Smith

This double-height space is all laid-back comfort. For a white sofa of similarly epic proportions, see the selection at Skandium, or – cheaper – sandwich together a couple of pieces from Ikea’s modular Karlstad range. You can pick up vintage chests like this at antiques fairs – try Ardingly – and add castors yourself (from castors-online.co.uk). The low-slung leather safari chairs are by Kaare Klint: try mid-century Danish specialists Elliott & Tate, Sigmar or Nottingham’s Danish Homestore. Hung high, to draw attention to the lofty space, are a pair of antique antlers from Canada: try vintage stores, or Pedlars. Photograph: Cristina Olsen

This three-bedroom south London terrace is small and the owners didn’t want to extend. Instead, working with architects Studio Octopi they enhanced what they already had. This open-plan living room has a half-wall into the entrance hall. The orange chair is from Twenty Twenty One (Cinema easy chair by Lammhults, from £846). The table is no longer available, but mix and match Serralunga’s Handy 45 tables, £159 each from Made in Design. Photograph: Michael Franke for the Guardian

Painted a gothic grey (Railings by Farrow & Ball), with one wall papered in Wisteria by Cole & Son, this living room is filled with battered leather furniture and vintage lampshades, objects and frames. Photograph: Rachael Smith

Fashion designers Antoni Burakowski and Alison Roberts, aka Antoni & Alison, run their studio from their four-storey Georgian home in Southwark, London – all raw brick, exposed beams and reclaimed furniture. The house was rotten when they bought it. “The surveyors said, walk away, but we fell in love with it,” says Antoni. A handsome panelled wood front door (from Lassco), which leads directly on to the ground-floor reception, replaced an ordinary-looking door from B&Q. Photograph: Michael Franke

This is a Polder sofa, by Hella Jongerius for Vitra. It is set with clashing orange cushions and a grey one from Melin Tregwynt. Photograph: Rachel Whiting

In this cool, bright living room, a Matthew Hilton chair and ottoman sit alongside a Ribbon stool by Nendo for Cappellini (found on ebay), and an old Habitat rug. Photograph: Rachel Whiting

This living room is all about showcasing mid-century design, including Hans Wegner’s brown Ox Chair, Wegner’s electric-blue Papa Bear Chair (try the Danish design store), and a glossy yellow coffee table, a one-off by David Restorick. Photograph: Matt Laver/other

The ordinary and the extra­ordinary exist side by side in Isabelle Puech’s Paris apartment – a converted carousel workshop in the 9th arrondissement, where merry-go-round horses were once repaired. The upper reaches of this vast, double-height space are accessed via a rusting spiral staircase, and three large, first world war battlefield medical kits – found, like much else, in the flea markets of Vanves and St-Ouen – are used as seating. Metal girders and factory lighting add to the industrial air, which is only ­softened by a wooden rocking chair. Photograph: Camera Press/MCM/Christophe Dugied

These acid-yellow walls have a distressed effect, which was accidental. “I bought some runny cheap paint by mistake,” says owner Tamara Salman, who has worked as creative director at Liberty and for fashion house Prada. “It gave an uneven but textured finish, like you find in India.” Heavy black picture frames stand out on the walls (try Ikea’s Ung Drill frame, £25.53). The taxidermy is from Lillie Road Antiques, the rug is by Christopher Farr and an old chaise is covered in pink velvet (try Soho Three chaise by Richard Ward, in Kaleidoscope fabric by Margo Selby, £995 without fabric, from Wawa). The artwork is by Ray Caesar. Photograph: Gap Interiors

These plain white box shelves are made more arresting by colour-blocking its contents. The rug is from Habitat. Photograph: Ben Anders for the Guardian

The floating shelves in this alcove don't quite meet the chimney breast and contribute to a feeling of lightness in this white-washed room. You can buy blocky floating shelves from Ikea, or commission a carpenter to make them bespoke. Just don't complain when everything falls off the end... Photograph: Holly Jolliffe/Guardian

A living room in which pop art meets pomp. The lounge chair, from a house clearance, was once in the bar of the QE2; the Warhol and Edie Sedgwick cushions came from TK Maxx. For a similar rug, try WovenGround’s new Spirale rug wovenground.com. The lips print is by Michael English try originalprints.com and the “gun” tray, far right, is by Piero Fornasetti – try eBay or Selfridges selfridges.com Photograph: James French

The green paint on the top 2ft of wall, merging into pale grey, was inspired by the current trend for fading colour. The grey is Cornforth White from Farrow & Ball and the green is Green Parrot, from Dulux. Instead of picture hooks, slim shelves sit at different heights to display paintings and prints, making it easier to swap and change the pictures. The trio of secondhand Ercol side tables, bought individually and in mismatched woods, are painted in bright 50s colours. Photograph: Megan Taylor for the Guardian

In design expert Cathy Strongman's minimal living room minimal much comes from London – the Sax coffee table by Terence Woodgate is an ex-display model, the G-Plan sideboard is from second-hand shop Pictures & Light in Stoke Newington and the Van Amburgh side table was found at Thorsten Van Elten. The black CABI U sideboard is from the Danish shop HAY as is the Little Nobody chair created by Komplot out of recycled plastic bottles. The wooden set of London landmarks on the window sill are from Muji. Photograph: Cathy Strongman/Cathy Strongman