These 6 Design Mistakes Make Your Living Room So Much Harder to Clean — Just Because They're Trendy, Doesn't Make Them Practical

An art collector's loft living room with brown walls. structural sculptures, a brown couch, upholstered wooden pouffs, a pair of curved wood coffee tables, and a brown leather armchair.

Have you ever spent a Sunday cleaning your home, only to get stuck in your living room and feel exhausted just looking at the task ahead? Well, I'm sorry to say it, but your living room's design choices could, in fact, be the problem.

Rather than leaving it to double the time spent on your household cleaning schedule, my advice is to survey your living room for these design mistakes and amend them instead. This way, you'll need less elbow grease in the long run, and a tidier space to lounge in.

So, I asked the experts about the most common design mistakes that could be causing cleaning trouble, and here's what they had to say.

1. High-Pile Carpets and Wall-to-Wall Carpets

DO INSTEAD: Pad your living room with less shaggy rugs, like this LAYERED X Evelina Kroon Berry Rain Wool Rug. (Image credit: LAYERED x Evelina Kroon)

"High-pile carpets are a popular design mistake that tends to make living rooms much harder to clean, says Evelina Juzėnaitė, principal at Planner 5D. "They look beautiful and cozy, but high-pile carpets collect dust, stains, crumbs, and pet hair."

Plus, she adds that they are tough to vacuum, too. So if you're having to clean a shag rug or a high-pile area rug, you'll have to spend a lot of time tackling even the simplest of stains.

Petya Holevich, cleaning expert at Fantastic Services, also finds that thick rugs with loosely woven fibers are a major trap for dirt. "Some often require specialized vacuuming or professional cleaning," she notes. "Instead, I recommend opting for low-pile or flat-weave rugs to allow for quicker vacuuming and make spill management much easier."

Tinted

Jepson Wool Rug

Color: Brown / Off White

If you yearn for the plush feel of a high-pile rug but loathe the maintenance that comes with it, something like this mixed-pile Jepson Wool Rug is ideal.

2. Open Shelving

DO INSTEAD: Prioritize closed shelving for an organized living room with less visual clutter and dust pile-up. (Image credit: Eugene Shishkin. Design: Tim Veresnovsky)

"Open shelves are beautiful because you can put nice decorations on them, but they will accumulate a lot of dust. And without regular cleaning, they'll look unkempt and distract from the style of your space," says Evelina.

"Where open shelving is concerned, I also find that it's important not to clutter them up and to keep only aesthetic decorations on display, otherwise there will be chaos." All in all, these dirt magnets are better avoided and easily fixed.

So when you're debating open shelves vs wall cabinets in your living room, closed storage is an undoubted win any day. And if you don't want to let go of the charm of an open shelf, then mix one into your vignette, but keep it minimal.

Mustard Made

The Kit

Color: Slate

The Kit by Mustard Made is a great pick for colorful living storage, and the ribbed glass offers a peek into the curiosities within while keeping it dust-free.

3. Light-Colored, High-Maintenance Furniture Upholstery

DO INSTEAD: Consider low-maintenance upholstery colors in darker, more forgiving palettes. (Image credit: Nicole Franzen. Design: Jessica Gersten Design)

"Choosing light-colored furniture upholstery is another mistake that will make your living room hard to clean," says Evelina. "White or cream-colored upholstery looks clean, but without high-tech fabric or removable washable covers, stains are inevitable, especially if you have pets or children."

It's no secret that a lighter furniture color palette will have you cleaning your sofa a lot more. I recommend rehoming high-maintenance colored furniture to your private spaces and reserving more forgiving upholstery colors for your hosting zones.

Anna Tatsioni, design director at Decorilla, tells me that fabric matters, too. "It’s a living room design error I see way too often — ignoring what material makes most sense given the use-case," she says. "To save yourself the cleaning stress, opt for an easily cleaned, lower-maintenance material like cotton."

Urban Outfitters

Rhea Velvet Swivel Chair

Color: Green

This Rhea Velvet Swivel Chair from Urban Outfitters sports a darker color that won't have you worrying as much as a white couch.

4. Overloading With Decor

DO INSTEAD: Embrace minimalism in your living room for a cleaner finish. (Image credit: Timothy Kaye. Design: the Stylesmiths. Architecture: Di Bartolo Architects)

According to Evelina, overloading a room with decorative items like too many vases, candles, trays, or baskets increases cleaning time and creates more surfaces for dust to accumulate.

And Anna tells me that this applies to shelves and coffee tables alike, saying: "Every time surfaces need dusting or wiping down, that cleaning task will take so much longer because every decorative piece also has to be cleaned individually and moved to access the surface."

"Not to mention, there’s always the risk of knocking an ornament over if cleaning is happening in a rush," she adds. Instead of saturating a space with knick-knacks and decor, consider minimalist interior design ideas. Or, indulge in tidy maximalism to retain visual excitement while reducing clutter.

West Elm

Large Foundation Tray

Color: Black

I find that adding a beautiful tray like this helps you frame your coffee table stylings so you have fewer items taking up table real estate.

5. Glass Surfaces Galore

DO INSTEAD: Limit your use of glass and rely on smudge-resistant materials. (Image credit: Dave Wheeler. Design: Modify Homes)

I've seen so many homes fitted with glass walls, doors, and tall floor-to-ceiling windows, and while the allure is undeniable, I always find myself wondering about the upkeep of it all. After all, glass is not one to stay sparkling for long.

"Although furniture with glass surfaces visually expands the space, they constantly accumulate fingerprints, smudges, and dust," Evelina points out. By bringing glass accents into your living room, you're automatically increasing your chore time.

Instead of spending hours washing your windows until they're squeaky clean and worrying over mirror-drenched walls, bring these reflective materials into your living room in smaller doses for a quicker Sunday reset routine.

Ferm Living

Folia Mirror

Size: 82 cm (L)

This dark-stained burl wood mirror from Ferm Living is a great idea to accessorize with glass in a stress-free way.

6. Exposed Cords and Wires

DO INSTEAD: Organize your cords and conceal your wires. (Image credit: Mitchell Kemp. Design: CG Design Studio )

"Exposed cords and wires are a cleaning headache as well as a safety hazard. Cords should never run freely across a walkway, and it’s so important to secure them against a firm surface like a wall, but I see this issue more often than not in living rooms," says Petya.

"Lifting and adjusting wires and cords while dusting or vacuuming is far from ideal, to say the least. Just like furniture layout needs to be carefully planned, so does the placement of cords and wires."

An easy fix is to learn how to organize cords in a living room. By introducing organizers and concealing your wires, you're more likely to clean thoroughly, and it'll make your home safer, too.

And Jacob

Cable Holder Pink Marble

Size: 9 cm x 3 cm

Stylish cord organizers like this Pink Marble Cable Holder by And Jacob will help your wires stay neat and easy to clean around.

If you're in the middle of readying your living spaces for the holidays, our guide to resetting your home for winter reads as a trusty, expert checklist.