“Home idea with IKEA”: a family living room facelift

Ieva and Vitalijus wanted to have a room suitable for both spending time with their little Elija and welcoming guests. IKEA interior designer Ilona Mozgo helped them switch their old living room to another one, featuring more space and cosiness.

Big area, little space
The living room is where the family spends the most of their day. Here, they come to play board games, Elija watches cartoons, and parents would be happy to invite some guests, only... For some reason, there is not enough space to seat them, despite the room area is near 17 square meters. It's all about the wrong furniture: an unused desk takes up a lot of space and a bulky sofa provides seating for no more than three persons.

A living room or a children's room?
Although Elija has a separate room, her playhouse occupies an honorable place in the living room. The brightly-coloured house that does not match the wooden furniture and colourful objects perfectly visible behind the glass door of the storage unit make the living room feel cluttered. Besides, the family has to move a heavy solid wood coffee table from one place to another, when they need some space for board games or Elija’s gymnastics practice.

Lack of storage
The huge wooden storage unit does not meet the family's needs. It offers too little space for bed linens, papers, board games and Elija’s drawings. It is hard to find the thing they need, and after removing one thing, the others tend to go down together.

“Before the makeover in the living room, it is important to decide for what activities it will be used. This will help to divide the room into different areas and make it clear what furniture and other items have to fit in. Instead of buying new furniture, try to change your room layout using the old pieces.”

There is no living room without a sofa
Whatever the family wants to do in their living room - watching movies, playing games, socializing or welcoming guests - they definitely need a sofa. After the playhouse and the desk moved into the children’s room, there is enough space for a wide four-seat sofa that can serve for even more than just sitting. It can turn into a comfortable double bed and has a storage box under the chaise longue. And that is not all, as the wall behind the sofa-bed has turned into a display of family photos.

“I took inspiration from the beautiful river view outside the window. I wanted to create a modern, cosy and comfortable living room, the interior of which would be close to the colours of nature, so I took brown, beige and green.”

How many cabinets are there?
The wooden storage unit that took up a lot of space has been replaced with BESTÅ cabinet combination. The colour of the doors is only a few shades darker than the walls, so the cabinets do not stand out and the room looks more spacious. There are dozens of individual cabinets and drawers, so now each item can have its own place. To make it even more comfortable, Ilona put smaller items into TJENA boxes. By stacking them on top of each other, twice as many items can be accommodated in the same cabinet.

Desk-partition-shelving unit
The interior designer placed an open KALLAX shelving unit at the end of the sofa, so that Elija’s board games, drawings and parents’ documents would be close at hand when needed. The top of the shelf can be used as a desk for drawing, and it perfectly separates the living room from the hallway.

Bedding belongs under the bed
The bedding that used to rest inside the wooden storage unit has moved under the sofa-bed. The chaise longue is roomy enough to hold two SKUBB storage cases: one for bedding and one for seasonal clothes.