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The living room is an important part of the home because it's not only a place where you and your family go to relax, but it's also a place where you will often entertain guests
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And so it's no wonder that we want to spend extra time decorating that space in our home
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But you don't actually have to spend a lot of money to put together a well-appointed living room
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You can actually do it with five simple things, and we're going to talk all about how to do that in this video
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Let's get started. Hi, I'm Lindsay Diane from Diane Decor.com. In this video, we're going to talk all about how to decorate your home with five simple things
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Let's jump in with number one. First up is an area rug
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Now, an area rug is fantastic for a variety of reasons. Not only is it an anchor for the furniture within your living room, but it also gives you an opportunity to infuse textures and colors into your space
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So these may be colors that you want to repeat, so things that are in your sofa that you want to emphasize or that are on your pillow covers or they're possibly even on your curtains and window treatments
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Use the area rug as an opportunity to sort of draw in those colors
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and really create a cohesive look in your space. Area rugs are also relatively inexpensive and can be found a ton of different places
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You can find them locally at home goods for incredible prices. You can find them at Walmart and Target, Wayfair, Amazon, Home Depot, JCPenney
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You can find an area rug anywhere for just about any price point
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So get an area rug that should be the very first thing that you grab to help decorate your space
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The next simple way to decorate your living room is with plants
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Now, plants are a great option because they come in all different shapes, sizes, and varieties
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Of course, you can go with artificial or real. You can go with small potted plants like succulents and herbs
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or you can go with something larger like a large artificial tree or even a real tree
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These are going to give you a lot of versatility. You can move plants around easily
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They also come in a variety of different vessels. So they may come in little baskets
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They may come in vases. You can move them around and pot them in different things
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And it will always give you an opportunity to have something green, but maybe also switch up the texture from time to time
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So you may have something that a small little artificial plant that you can stick into a little pumpkin vase in the fall or maybe you can stick it into a little seashell base in the summer
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They have a lot of versatility to them, whether they're real or faux
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Although, of course, faux plants are going to have a little bit more versatility because you
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don't have to worry about watering them in sunlight and things like that. But, and they're also going to stay the same size
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So I would say faux definitely have the edge there. But think about adding that greenery and that life to your space
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It's a really simple way to decorate a living room. Again, you can have them in a macromay hanger in the corner
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You can have them hanging from the ceiling. You can have small potted plants dotted on a coffee table or on a sofa table behind your sofa
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You can have larger trees in the corners, maybe flanking your firepillar
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or your entertainment center. There are a lot of great options with plants
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Number three are books. Now, whether you have a bookcase or not
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I highly recommend decorating your living room with books. They are really fantastic for creating vignettes
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on either your coffee table or your sofa table or your end table
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They can be stacked on a mantle. They can also be stacked underneath a lower level of a coffee table or even opened up on a book display as something that will be used to entertain guests, something that they can flip through when they're sitting, maybe waiting for you to bring a snack or a drink
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You can have them displayed and open to a certain page. Books are fantastic. Books are also very versatile because
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They come in different sizes and different colors. What I would do is I would go ahead and remove the jackets from the books that will give them more of a uniform look
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You're all the way down to sort of the raw book cover instead of having that flimsy piece of paper on the outside
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That tends to be much more colorful and bold. Usually once you pull off that outer book jacket, you're going to have more of a solid color
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So whether it's white or blue or gray or who knows. really your books could be any color
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But they're also, if you're using them purely for decoration and you don't really care what's in
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them and you just want to use them to sort of elevate, you know, your vignette or you want to
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just fill out a bookcase or a shelf or a floating shelf, then source them inexpensively
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Get them secondhand from the Salvation Army or Goodwill or get them cheap from the dollar
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tree or dollar general or five below all of those places are great to source books from especially if you using them purely for decoration And before you go out to buy any new books just know that there
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are lots of books that are of interest to people that they just like to flip through. So check
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your collection first. Books that are about travel, photography, even cookbooks are really great
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to just kind of flip through and look at the pictures. So if you want something that is just going to be of interest on your coffee table that you can lay out
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that your guests can kind of thumb through, consider looking for some of those that you may already have on hand before you go buying anything new
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Number four is wall art. Wall art is fantastic for creating a focal point in your living room
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If you do not have a big architectural focal point that has been built in for you
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like a fireplace, a mantle, a built-in bookshelf, then you can create one with a large
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piece of wall art or a smaller wall art series, so like a panel of three or a set of three or a set
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of two, that will take up a large space on your wall
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Usually you would do this over your sofa if you're trying to create a focal point because
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odds are opposite that sofa, you may have a television and you won't be able to do a whole lot
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more with that wall. But a piece of wall art, especially one that can splash in some of those
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colors that you have in your area rug and that you have in your sofa or your armchairs or
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your pillow covers and it will help coordinate and mesh everything together is a great and
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simple way to decorate your living room. Again, wall art can be found at every price point
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and is readily available. You can buy secondhand. You can buy inexpensively at places like Burlington
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or Home Goods or Marshalls or T.J. Max. Any of those places you can find locally
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and find really inexpensive, oversized wall art. Or, of course, you can go online
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You can go to Amazon. You can go to Wayfair. You can go to Bed Bath and Beyond
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has now merged with overstock, right? So they have a ton of stuff now. They're online only
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but you can visit there. You can also choose to print something yourself from Etsy. They have
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Etsy's digital download. So if you want to support a local artist or an artist anywhere online
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you can buy the digital download and then go ahead and get it printed off, post your size
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or get it printed onto a canvas and have something really unique
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to hang in your living room. Last but not least are pillows Do not underestimate the power of pillows when it comes to visually filling out a space If you doubt it just take a picture of your living room with no pillows and then just add
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you know, for a standard size sofa, I would say four pillows, for a love seat, at least two
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and have a small lumbar pillow or a smaller size pillow for each armchair. And you would be surprised
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how much more decorated and put together your space feels. Again, this is an opportunity, much like the area rug
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to infuse different colors, different textures. This is another way to switch out your colors seasonally
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So pillowcases are one of the first things that I go to when I want to swap out my fall decor for winter
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or my winter for spring. My pillowcases are one of the very first things that I change out
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They're inexpensive and it's much less costly than having to re-buy pillows over and over again
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You just swap out your covers and keep the inserts. And it makes storing seasonal decor really easy because everything's going to lie flat
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But in any event, pillows are absolutely a simple, easy way to decorate your living room
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You don't want to go too overboard. I know lots of times people just have a sofa filled with pillows like six, seven
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eight pillows and I always wonder, how are you even sitting on that sofa? You know, but you just want them to not only add a little decoration and add a little
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just support for when people are sitting there, but you don't want to make it so cumbersome
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that people can't actually sit down on the sofa because they're just swallowed up by this
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mass of pillows. but in any of it, pillows are a great way to go and a simple way to decorate your living room
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So with those five things and your standard furniture layout, you are going to be set
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You'll have a perfectly decorated living room, all the things that you need
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an area rug, wall art, books, plants, and pillowcases in addition to your sofa or your coffee table or your end table
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your love seat, whatever furniture combination you have in there, those are the five things that you
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should start with to accompany those to have a beautifully decorated living room. I thank you so
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much for watching. Don't forget to visit me at diane decor.com. I write all about decorating ideas
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and inspiration over there, and I will see you in the next video. Bye