Decor overwhelm, ignoring scale, and losing sense of what you really want your space to look like can lead to a living room that looks tacky. While style is completely subjective, there are a few helpful rules of thumb that two design experts shared with us that’ll help you stay on track.

These tips include one tiny tweak that makes a major difference in how your living room looks, and additional ideas for creating a space you love and feel right at home.

How to Save Your Living Room From Looking Tacky

Two of the biggest factors that result in a tacky living room are having too much decor or visual clutter and creating discordance through poorly proportioned furniture and awkward layouts.

“Thoughtful editing goes a long way in our homes,” says interior decorator Andrea Thompson.

So one tiny tweak? Take one or two things away from your living room. That could be a throw pillow from a growing collection on the couch, or a plant if you have a dozen of them crowding your space.

Interior designer Courtney Batten agrees. No matter what your design style is or what objects you gravitate towards, these issues can happen to anyone.

“Thoughtfulness is key,” she says.

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How to Keep From Doing Too Much

To ensure this doesn’t happen in your own living room, here are several areas to focus on that can help you maintain simplicity and scale, according to the experts:

• Remove at least two pillows from your sofa. Thompson says you don’t need six or more.
• A multitude of chairs isn’t necessary unless you’re hosting a party. Stick to just two and a couch.
• Get your rug sizing right. Batten notes your furniture should fully fit within the rug, or at the very least, each piece’s front legs should.
• Keep cords out of the way. Batten says to use flat extension cords, floor plugs, or cord channels to better hide them.
• Ignore the overhead light; this can cast weird shadows and create a not-so-welcoming atmosphere. Thompson says to use matching table lamps on either side of your sofa or lean on one large floor lamp.
• Choose only two large plants to have in your living room; all the rest should be moved to other spots around your home.

“I find that tacky can easily be tackled by taking everything down a notch,” Thompson says.

4 Features Making Your Living Room Look Tacky

There are a couple different things that can lead to a living room looking tacky.

“The biggest culprits tend to be poor scale, awkward layout, and visual noise,” Batten says.

Here are four other things to keep an eye on and save your living room from being overwhelming in the worst way.

Clashing Undertones

If you’ve ever looked at a room that wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t put your finger on what was wrong, it may have been clashing undertones. This creates disharmony that, although subtle at first, becomes hard to ignore.

“Even when you’re using neutrals or complementary colors, if the undertones fight (like warm cream next to cool gray), it creates subconscious tension,” says Batten.

Once you have the palette right and have determined the tones and color temperature you want, you can continue decorating.

“Choose the pillows and a throw that best complement the color of the sofa and the side chairs,” says Thompson.

Busy Walls

While the intention of an art or photo-adorned wall is nice, it can quickly turn chaotic. Too many pieces make it hard to maintain a focal point and cohesion. Try to pare down your collection or move art pieces to other walls in your home.

“Have between one to three large art pieces over the sofa, not 12 medium ones that are all competing with each other,” explains Thompson.

You can do the same with the color of your walls, too, which might contribute to a sense of overwhelm or busyness.

Lack of Spatial Symmertry

Just like proportion, balance and symmetry are important for avoiding tacky spaces. If one side of the room is heavy on furniture and the other isn’t—or you’ve placed lighting fixtures or plants in just one area—you instantly lose a sense of equilibrium.

“Make sure low and high pieces work together,” says Thompson. “For instance, the tall floor lamp, the two large plants, and the large art pieces will all be symbiotic with the sofa and chairs, coffee table and side tables (your low pieces).”

Cluttered Coffee Tables and Surfaces

Your coffee table may be unassuming, but with too much stuff on top or the wrong decor, it can bring the space’s energy down.

“Remove the clutter from the coffee table and add a small plant or flowers, and a few (very few) books or sentimental items,” Thompson says.

She also recommends swapping out your coffee table for a storage ottoman if you’re short on space. This is a great way to hide clutter and still have surface area for setting magazines, cups, or remotes. Together, all of these tips will prevent your living room from ever feeling tacky.

Tons of tips and ideas for decorating the wall around a TV. 

The age old question — how to make the big TVs of today work in the scheme of a room and not overpower it.

Televisions don’t bother me much so I’m not a big stickler about this. But I definitely don’t want it to be the center of attention — often they do stand out more than we’d like!

I’ve gathered a few of my favorite ideas on how to incorporate a TV into the design of your house, and even help it to disappear a little bit!

1. Create a TV gallery wall

My favorite ideas involve gallery walls — especially those with black frames. I think they work so well with the TV:

Source: Pottery Barn catalog

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What a beautiful room right? I think this TV wall is done so well. White frames and other colors work well too of course, I just think the black helps to make the TV stand out a little less. 

I love the idea of incorporating big artwork to steal the focus:

I love how this art goes all the way down to the floor and really makes the TV feel a part of the gallery.

I’ve always loved this image from Pottery Barn and their use of frames and other items to make an art wall around the TV:

Source: Pottery Barn catalog

Keep in mind this can get busy fast! The black and white photos keep this wall from becoming visually overwhelming. 

I love how this one has some art hung behind the TV a bit — you can still see it, but it feels layered: 

These are a couple of my favorites — I like the simple but non-symmetrical layout: 

Lauren Haskett Fine Design

By the way, I prefer to hang our TVs instead of sitting them on a piece of furniture. I ALWAYS hang our flatscreen televisions on the wall. 

I find a mounted TV is cleaner and blends in to the surroundings better. 

It seems to “lighten” the space and gives it more visual breathing room.

I love the way Emily pulls in some color around her dark TV: 

Beautiful! Notice how the green tones in the artwork are repeated? This helps to keep the artwork from looking too busy. 

I used very simple black frames around the TV hanging in our bedroom: 

I also layered a couple slightly behind the TV like in the photo above. 

If you don’t want to use art, try something else! I love Marian’s use of decorative plates for a softer feel: 

Oh how I LOVE that symmetry! 

2. Keep the decor around the TV simple

I love the clean floating shelves with simple decor here: 

Source: Crate and Barrel catalog

I really like the low TV stand as well. This is simpler and less cluttered look if a gallery wall is too much for you. 

A beautiful furniture piece like our vintage dresser also helps to direct the attention elsewhere!

Be careful with decor — too many accessories bring extra attention to the TV and make it a focal point.

3. “Hide” the television with a dark wall

I also like the idea of going darker on the wall behind the television. A big black box on a light wall sticks out like a sore thumb!

A dark paint color blends the television into the background. 

You can paint a whole wall or a smaller section — I love this dark gray living room fireplace flanked by white bookcases:

You KNOW how much I love a gray accent!

Here’s ours hanging over the dark gray fireplace and built ins in our old family room (this color is Peppercorn by Sherwin-Williams):

I think a dark wall goes a long way to downplaying the flatscreen.

Creating an accent wall behind can also direct attention away from the television. When you combine that with a dark background like our dark gray entertainment center wall, it works even better:

4. Turn your TV into art! 

We purchased a Samsung Frame TV years ago and I love it! It has a more of a matte screen that turns your television into a piece of art: 

There are beautiful scenes with just about any theme you can think of on YouTube as well. They are great to display during a party or get together. 

See the tutorial for our DIY frame for the TV — my version was a fraction of what the Samsung frames costs. 

Have you done anything special to minimize the TVs in your house? Or does it not bother you much?