How I Zoned Off My Small Open Plan Living Room

Alright, I think the phrase put your money where your mouth is is relevant here. Do we even follow our own rules over here on FurnishHim? Our co-founder James certainly has. It may be a humble open plan living room, and it may be modestly furnished; however, that is no excuse no to follow the FurnishHim way of the cool male (and in this case, female) living space. In this article we have some DIY apartment ideas for guys, some ideas on decorating a mans apartment on a budget and great open plan, small apartment ideas.

With a small living room we managed to zone off a nice eating corner, TV corner and reading corner. We went with a neutral and fresh green and yellow color pallet with grey and black additional furniture. This color seems to work well for a male and female co-living space. It feels fresh and congruent – see: How to Add Color To Your New Apartment for Men.

Before we dive in on zoning a small open plan living space take at look at some of the other styling points James has taken on board directly from FurnishHim. The arc floor lamp is there – 8 Awesome Arc Floor Lamps For Male Living Spaces; Making your own DIY driftwood décor (see below) – 50 Driftwood Inspired Living Spaces For Men; Wind palm plants! – 10 Really Hard to Kill Plants for Your Apartment; and more! we’ve got round mirrors, throws, original art, and are currently working on filling the gap above the TV with more movie posters.

Reading Color

Green and yellow reading corner (masterfully lit for this photo with a clulite…). We turned this awkward corner, just opposite the stairs, into a zen reading space with a velvet greet occasional chair and complementary yellow foot stool, draped in a black and white throw – which we wrote about here – 15 Awesome Throws For a Man’s Apartment – FURNISH HIM. To add height to the area we placed some buddha artwork (which seemed to work with the corner) and a handy floating shelf above, to fill in the void above the reading space. The wind palm is an additional touch which adds a peaceful feel to the reading corner.

L-Shape Couch

The L-shaped couch seemed like a no-brainer in order to zone off the seating area from the reading corner and dining table. We decided not to go for a rug as the space didn’t quite seem big enough for that, and would perhaps clutter the area up too much. If you have a larger space that can fit a nice square rug in it then check out our article: Get in The Zone: How to Divide an Open Plan Apartment.

Round Mid-mod Mirror

A mid-century round mirror above the fire place. We’d have got a larger one to act as a bigger accent piece, all though furnishing something in peak-Covid wasn’t easy! And – there’s the home made drift-wood décor piece I made from this article: 50 Driftwood Inspired Living Spaces For Men – FURNISH HIM. The DIY drift wood décor piece is a great way to decorate a college apartment for guys, for example.

TV Corner

We tried to frame our TV corner with a large plant and DVD case – with a movie poster above; with more movie posters to come as we wrote about in this article: How to Decorate The Wall Space Above Your TV For Male Living Spaces – FURNISH HIM

Dining Area

We got a compact dining area where the chairs fit really closely to the table – so we can move around it and keep it tidy. We kept to the color scheme here too – with yellow and green with other neutral tones like grey with the leaning arc lamp and table and chairs. Also we’ve placed my cheap and easy wall art we learned how to make here: How to Make a DIY Modern Painting for Your Wall – FURNISH HIM,

More to be done? Of course, it is a work in progress, but hopefully this article shows that we practice what we preach over here at FurnishHim.