5 crucial tips for designing your own masculine living room

Ahh, the living room. Usually the most important room for us men, the room where we tend to spend most of our time in. That makes it the perfect place to start your home decor journey then!

Before reading, we recommend that you've read our ebook on the fundamentals of modern masculine home decor. You can get the ebook for free, just by subscribing to our newsletter. Once you've got the fundamentals sorted, we've gathered some living room specific tips here to help you get started.

Find your centre of gravity

As the living room is a social area where you drink and hang out with friends, you want those friends to feel the rhythm of the room as soon as they enter. You can easily achieve this by using a focal point when you decorate - for example a TV, fireplace, or a coffee table. Having your furniture, especially seating, all facing that focal point will create a natural flow to the room.

Image: D3 Design Studio

Go big with the sofa

If you're looking for more masculine furniture, a quick and easy tip to find it is to just go bigger and heavier. The sofa might as well be the posterboy for this concept. Even if your space is on the smaller side, you can really stretch the limits with your sofa. As you'll see in the image below, the sofa is so big that there's no space for chairs on the other side of the dining table, and it works fine.

Your friends will also love the fact you have a large sofa, as there's more space for them to get comfortable. Also, big sofas have been scientifically proven to be more comfortable. Scientifically proven by my elegant buttocks, that is.

Image: ADD Design

Get dimmable lighting

Sometimes all it takes to make a room gain an edge is to dim the lights. This can be achieved by floor lamps or table lamps with dense shades. Alternatively, you could invest in dimmable light bulbs for your overhead lighting. Soft lighting is more inviting and masks any problems your room might have. Also great for dates!


Image: M. Serhat Sezgin

Keep liquor on hand

Consider a classic bar or liquor shelf the finishing touch on your masculine living room. Buy some quality brands and put them on full display with the labels facing forward. When you're having guests, bring out the ice bucket, shakes and martini glasses. It's called a "living" room for a reason!

Invest in an "attention whore" ornament

Honestly, this could be anything. Some homes have an attention grabber built-in via an amazing view or well designed architecture. If that's not the case for you, I recommend investing in art of some form to fulfill this role. But there's no better way to teach than to demonstrate, so we have another blog post written entirely on this subject! Click here to read it.


Image: D3 Design Studio