How to Design the Ideal Modern Living Room

For many families, living rooms are the place where life happens!

Not only do living rooms serve as a place to relax and connect with family, this is also the space where we host friends and neighbors - whether it is for a formal holiday cocktail party, a baby shower, or for a weekly Thursday night-football screening.

Given that the living room serves a central place in both family life and in the social sphere it’s important that the space functions well, and functions flexibly to serve so many different purposes. As we’ve outlined in our blog, The Top Benefits of Designing a Flexible House Plan and How to Achieve Them, flexible home design is a key element of modern home plans – and in few spaces is this flexibility more apparent or more important than in modern living room design, and in the relationship between the living room and adjacent spaces.

In this blog we will break down both the form and the function of a modern living room – providing tips on how to ensure that your living room functions well, and flexes to serve both your family time and social time.

What is the main function of your living room?

The first question to ask yourself when preparing to design (or re-design) your modern living room is the function that it will serve in your home. This will not only help you chose furnishings and a design style that will fit the function of your living room, but also influence other design considerations, such as where you situate your living room or living rooms in relation to other spaces in your home and what other design elements to include in your modern living room design.

Many smaller homes have only one “living room” which serves not only as the space where neighbors and guests are hosted, but also serves the function of a more casual “family room” where families kick back to watch TV and to hang out generally. In some small home plans, like mine, it’s also as a general space where life is truly lived – young kids play with their toys, music practice happens, homework is completed at the coffee table, pizza is consumed while watching a movie, and gifts are opened during birthday and holiday celebrations.

This duel “public” and “private” function creates different considerations than in a large home plan with more than one living room, where the formal and informal functions served by the living room can be accommodated separately.

Living Rooms and Floor Plan Considerations

If you are working with a home builder or architect, or are shopping for a modern home plan online, consider where you want to situate your living room or living rooms in your home to best suite your lifestyle.

Small Modern Homes

Whereas you may wish to have a formal living room removed from the kitchen and dining area, it is often a great idea to have a dual-purpose living room adjacent to your dining area, and close to your kitchen. Especially in a small modern home plan, a well-designed living room can allow all the adjacent rooms to not only feel larger, but also to function larger than the actual square footage would suggest.

You can extend your dining area into your living room to accommodate larger gatherings where meals will be shared, and conversely, extend your living room into your dining area or adjacent entrance or circulation spaces for less formal gatherings. Keep this in mind before you design a sunken living room into a small modern home.

Large Modern Homes

Some homes have the luxury of space and can accommodate multiple living rooms.

Often, one or more formal living rooms situated in the public sphere of the home (for example, adjacent to the front entrance or dining area) and one or more less formal family rooms or media rooms, often situated on a second floor or in the basement, adjacent to bedrooms or a rec room.

Consider ensuring that the family room and informal living room are out of site of very public spaces such as the front entrance, home office, or front windows. This way, you will feel more comfortable unwinding in this space, and any messes left out by the kids (or yourself!) will be out of sight when company comes. Doing so also helps with sound attenuation, which will be especially helpful if you work from home, for example.

More formal living rooms can be situated adjacent to the public spaces of your home. Often, placing a formal living room at the front of the home works well as large windows at the front of the home not only provide great curb appeal, but provide natural light in the living room and allow the light to penetrate to adjoining rooms.

If you have a less-private urban lot or are building on a noisy street, consider a modern home plan with a courtyard at the front of the home (sometimes referred to as a forecourt). This way, you can still build a modern home with large windows but also enjoy privacy and sound attenuation from street noise.

Homeowners designing a home (or undertaking a major renovation of an existing home) with more than one living room will want to apply the considerations in this blog to each room, first considering the main function that each individual living room will serve, and how the function impacts design considerations.

*Pro-Tip: Situate your family room adjacent to a private outdoor space, such as a courtyard or your back yard. Connection to the outdoors improves well-being, and windows or patio doors will provide great natural light for your room. A patio also allows you to expand the size of the room in temperate weather.

Living Room Size

The size of your living room will depend on a few factors, including the size of your home, but also the function that it will serve.

Even in a small modern home, we recommend designing a living room that is not less than 14’x 14’ in size. A smaller room than this will not be comfortable or practical for day to day use.

If possible, homeowners should plan a living room that is not less than 16’ x 16’ in size. However, if you plan to have a large modern home with multiple living rooms, you may consider a smaller, formal, sitting room that is smaller than 16’ x 16’ in size.

If you have the luxury of space, and tend to enjoy entertaining, consider including a living room in your home design that is approximately 20’x20’ in size. A large living room can accommodate more seating, and more circulation area, making it perfect for those with large families or who love to mix and mingle with guests.

Ceiling Height

The best ceiling height for your modern living room will depend on the proportions of your room, but also how and where your living room is situated relative to other spaces in your home.

While incorporating a sixteen-foot-high ceiling into your plan may bring to mind images of grandeur, this height may in fact be disproportionate in narrow modern home plan and make your living room (and main floor) feel more like a long hallway than an inviting space. Likewise, a low 8-foot ceiling may leave your living room feeling like a hobbit hole if you have a large modern home plan.

While a minimum 10’ ceiling height throughout the main floor will work for most homes, we recommend that you work closely with your architect or builder to determine the celling height that will work best for you. At My Modern Home, we’ve already taken these considerations of scale into account for each of our home plans, which you can view and purchase online.

Interior Finishes

While drywall is the most common material used for interior wall finishes, you may wish to consider wood, stone masonry, or stone slab for some, or all of your living room walls.

Drywall has the advantage of being the most inexpensive and easiest to install material for interior walls. It is also easy to update (by changing your paint color), and is well suited to hanging art or televisions.

However, more luxurious finishes such as natural wood, stone masonry, or stone slab can be applied in your interior design to create a warm, minimalist modern interior. Natural materials tend to fare well as their aesthetic is generally less “trendy” than other materials. You’ll see that may minimalist modern homes which were designed over 100 years ago incorporate these elements, in living rooms in particular, and still look current today.

A trend that we see emerging (but expect to continue in the long-term) in minimalist modern design, is to see a continuity between exterior and interior materials. Wood and stone wall finishes provide the perfect opportunity to incorporate this element of design into your modern home design.

Take Advantage of your Lot’s Best Features

Once you have determined where in your home you plan to situate your living rooms, and how large each room will be, plan how to situate them to take advantage of other aspects of your lot and of your floor plan. For example, if you have a lot with a beautiful view, ensure that you situate your windows to take advantage! Working with an architect or your builder to customize your home plan can help ensure that you work with the opportunities your lot has to offer.

Be sure to keep in mind how daylight, and the movement of the sun, will affect your living room design. Not only will this make your living room a more pleasant space to spend time in, it can also help with the energy efficiency of your living room, and home overall.

Great Planning Leads to Great Results

Great planning will lead to a great living room to host friends and neighbors, and a cozy, comfortable place to unwind with your family. Keep in mind the considerations outlined in this blog and we have no doubt you’ll be well on the way to the ideal modern living room design.