Finishing the perfect living room’s look doesn’t stop at picking the right wall colors and furnishings. Instead, each space in your house requires something creative for completing its interior decor. Moreover, all interior design principles come down to one overarching belief ultimately - you should be able to feel the most comfortable in your home despite the many changes you make. 

While fancy accessories are necessary to make your home look trendy, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should neglect the importance of traditional aspects of decorating a home. Because more often than not, it’s the most ordinary and conventional things in life that give us the best comfort above everything else.

Abstract art has been playing a major role in creating interior spaces for decades. Although it was initially considered more of a high-end decor item that mainly acted as the finishing touch in luxuriously-styled homes, that cliché has changed in the past few years. The times have changed along with the concept of modernity. Now, abstract arts have become the kind of accessory that holds everything together, even in the smallest of rooms, without putting you out of your comfort zone. In addition, abstract paintings can make excellent centerpieces in your living room when you want to base everything else on that particular item.

Styling a Small Living Room with Abstract Arts

Decorating a small living room with abstract arts might seem like a daunting task to many people. However, you can bring your space to life without making it seem smaller or extremely congested if you know the right interior design rules. You can find the perfect conversation-starter pieces at any budget, considering the number of places where you can find abstract art now. However, these rules will make you aware of the choices you need to make to add the right colors, drama, style, and calmness to your home!

1- Take the Light Sources into Consideration

The first and the most important thing to consider when choosing abstract art for a small living room is to locate all the immediate light sources. Whether it’s overhead lights, lamps, or natural light, when an abstract art with delicate painting materials gets exposed to these light sources, they can cause photochemical damage to the artwork, causing fading and yellowing. Because a small living room wouldn’t have much room to disperse the light elsewhere, it’s understandable to keep your priorities straight before picking out the right painting for your room. 

Suppose your living room has got windows from which sunlight hits your abstract art directly. In that case, it can crack any unpainted raw canvas, stealing the element of interest from it effectively. In such instances, you can have two possible options for decorating your room adequately. The first option is to lean towards paintings done with oil paints or acrylics so that your canvas does well in the sun without fading, yellowing, or cracking. On the other hand, you can go all-in and invest in a UV-resistant glass frame for your painting, blocking up to 99% of the UV rays.

The colors you should select in a highly lit living room can depend upon your taste and how you want to style the space. In general, you can choose anything from black to white when it comes to a room with sufficient light sources. However, we would suggest avoiding too much black if you want to keep your room looking outdoorsy and fun.

Most people don’t consider these lighting aspects before buying abstract art. That’s why they also end up regretting their decisions afterward when they see their painting lose its worth because of the lack of precautions they took towards the lighting exposures.

2- Light up the Darkness

Now that you know what to do about extremely lit living rooms, let’s walk through what you can do if your living room doesn’t have much direct or tangy light sources to speak of. When your living room isn’t open to natural lights, and you haven’t styled it with lots of lights, keeping it neutral, you can make some creative changes by sparking it up through abstract art.

Small living rooms don’t usually have a dark aura to them, so we safely assume you might not want to make them look even more intimidating with more black and mysterious paintings. However, if that’s what you want anyway, we would recommend getting an artwork that also includes some other light colors like white, orange, or purple. This way, you can maintain that sleek outlook you want for your living room without damaging its overall style.

Now, if you want to skip the blacks and perk up your living room through abstract art, that’s also possible. You just need to look for something that contrasts with your wall and other furniture accessories. For example, consider you have off-white walls in your living room, but there aren’t any natural or over-the-top integrated lights in there. The sofas in the room are navy blue, and there’s a wood coffee table in the center. Considering these circumstances, we would suggest going all out and radiating your room with an energetic vibe with colorful paintings - something that demands immediate attention when you enter the room.

3- Consider the Vertical Elements

So far, you have learned the role of lightness and darkness while selecting an exquisite abstract art for your small living room. Next in line is to consider the height of your living room. This is yet another thing that most people forget to think about when selecting an artwork that exudes aesthetic appeal.

For the most effective placement, you should pick a spot on your wall such that the center of the painting is approximately fifty-eight to sixty inches from the floor. However, this rule might not work if you’re picking an extremely large abstract art for your wall. No matter the wall’s height, a large abstract art should always remain fifteen inches off the ground. Or, if there is any furniture right in front of it, then fifteen inches higher than that furniture should be the right height to hang the painting.

On the other hand, if your living room’s wall is too low, there’s one extra precaution you should take while revamping your space with art. As the walls are already too low, you have to work with the vertical element such that you don’t make an annoyingly distracting element with the addition of a painting. Instead, it is recommended to choose an abstract art with vertical lines to bring about a powerful visual statement, creating a high wall illusion. A horizontal design painting will only make your living room look more muffled. However, if you don’t like vertical designs, you can go for a splashed or scattered design, but don’t invest in a huge painting in that case.

4- Bring Out the Creative Corner

Corner spaces are often overlooked when it comes to decorating walls in a small living room. However, you can enhance those spaces with a work of art by placing a small abstract painting there. Some people also like to fill those corner places with small desks and lamps. Even if that’s the case, you can still take it a step further and turn those corners into opportunities to create a sense of movement and life in the room by hanging abstract arts.

When it comes to corner spaces, the choices are more than limitless. But it’s also a wise idea to remember that most people don’t usually stand facing the corner of a room, even if it is to see the hanging artwork. That’s why you should use this knowledge to your advantage and choose a bold, radiant abstract art that is easily readable even from a distance. 

Finally, one last thing to make your living room’s corner more aesthetically appealing is to choose a vertical-oriented painting. The reason behind this is that it creates momentum throughout the room in a way that your eyes come back to rest upon that previously-lonely corner repeatedly.

5- Make a Crowd

If you want to create a dramatic element in your small living room, we have the ultimate solution for you. A salon-style hanging can elevate your enjoyment of art while letting you go absolutely wild with several assorted paintings. What we mean by salon-style hanging is to make a crowd of paintings that both complement and contrast with each other adequately. You can make an arranged clutter of different abstract arts, and this will give you free rein in selecting different color paintings. Some of them might blend with your living room decor, and the rest of them can make a bold statement.

You can also integrate this idea with the previous one and make an awe-inspiring corner wall that is bound to take everyone’s attention.

6- To Define the Purpose, or Not

Contrary to what many people assume, it isn’t necessary to define your abstract art’s purpose. While it is a popular belief that you should get a painting that stirs up emotional memories, this isn’t a mandatory idea. It is more than enough to get an abstract art that visually inspires you and gives you a sense of creative satisfaction, even if it’s a singular color painting. 

Many people fear that if they don’t connect with a painting emotionally and intellectually, it’ll lose its worth with time. While it is a fact that personal attachment makes everything better, this doesn’t mean it wouldn’t fit in your living room. Simply because you don’t have any understanding of the art you’re hanging on to the wall doesn’t make it an inadequate choice. An artwork’s most crucial element is its aesthetic component, and it should be appreciated likewise. Besides, loving a painting enough to bring it home with you is an emotional attachment all on its own and should not be taken lightly. 

Your home is your sanctuary, and you’re allowed to decorate it as you desire without dwelling on anyone else’s opinion. The only thing that matters is if the abstract art gives you the level of comfort you wanted originally. If it is, everything else is a moot point.

7- The Upholstery Match

Another thing you might want to take into account when choosing abstract art for an already furnished living room is to consider your upholstery. The rugs, cushions, sofas, and even the coffee table essentials can collaborate when deciding the color scheme, you would want for your painting. The frames used in the painting should also match with the upholstery such that it doesn’t look out of place.

There’s a difference between being bold and incongruous. While you might want the painting to stand out in the living room, you should also ensure that it doesn’t look way out of harmony.

8- Green It Up

One thing that can never look out of place or improper in a living room is greenery. To give your place a spacious outlook, you can invest in some small plant-based abstract paintings that depict nature and exude serenity. You can also add some colors to the mix by integrating a few floral paintings, as it will balance all the greens adequately.

9- Introduce Geometry

Another tip to revamp your living room is to buy abstract art with geometric elements. Radiant paintings with multiple shapes can be an excellent, attention-grabbing focal point in homes, and it never clashes with the living room’s theme, no matter what color scheme you have in there.

The Final Verdict - It Doesn’t Have to be Complicated!

Despite what many people think, decorating a small living room with abstract art doesn’t have to be complicated. If a simple block of colored abstract art is what you think would look fantastic in your living room, that’s what you should go for. Your art should not have to be something that needs to be intellectual. It’s an aesthetic element for your home, and that’s exactly how it should be interpreted.