The living room in a home should be a welcoming, relaxing environment. It's where we chill out after a hard day at work and it's where we entertain friends and family. The room may function on many levels, as a playroom for the kids, a work space or a dining area. Decorating ideas for a living room must take all these factors into consideration. In addition to being pleasing to the eye, the room must operate as an efficient multi-usage space.

Modern thinking towards fabric and color is to keep things simple. Cushion covers and sofa covers are usually washable these days. Many people prefer wood flooring and one or two rugs to carpets. Neutral colors for painted walls give a good counterpoint to splashes of color in the furnishings.

Clean lines and an uncluttered space is what modern dwellers demand from decorating ideas for a living room. Ornaments should be kept to a minimum; perhaps one or two flower vases and a few photograph frames, a bowl of pot pourri and a fruit bowl. No one has time these days to be constantly going round with the feather duster. Living rooms resemble home entertainment centers as we go out less and enjoy our precious leisure time at home. A unit to house the TV set, DVD player and music system can keep everything tidily together. We tend to accumulate DVDs, CDs and videos at an alarming rate and these all have to be stored too.

Unless the home has a separate office, the living room may be used as an office too. When decorating ideas for a living room are considered, the room should be divided into its various activity zones. This can be done in a subtle way by using color or it can be more obvious with the use of dividers. There may be a leisure area, a computer workstation and a dining area. Different flooring is a good way of indicating zones in this way. A room could be partly carpeted and partly surfaced with wood flooring.

Wallpaper goes in and out of style and it's hard to keep up. Simple emulsioned walls with a dado rail looks fresh and is easy to re-do. When it comes to moving on and selling the home, buyers prefer to take on something that can be easily altered. Pictures make a house into a home and a picture rail is a convenient way of hanging them. The most important thing bout decorating ideas for a living room is that they reflect your personality and don't merely follow trends.