The living room is the main room in a home; it is where people spend the most time, eating, drinking, having parties, watching TV, or whatever else you like to do; therefore, it is essential that it looks as good as possible. It can be achieved by designing it the way you feel most comfortable, whether contemporary or traditional. Still, there is one thing that is the same in any living room no matter how you decorate it, and that is the focal point. The focal point of a living room is the feature piece, the thing that everybody looks at first when they walk into a room.
Traditionally the focal point of a room has been the fireplace; wood fireplaces are timeless; whether you go back 200 years or look in an everyday living, you will see that a large majority of them will have a wooden fireplace. This is mainly because the craftsmanship involved in making a wooden one is so impressive that it makes the perfect focal point; there are also so many shades of wood to suit almost every room, from the deep red of mahogany to the light yellow color of beech that anybody can find one to fit in. If you look at some of the most expensive fireplaces made from wood, you will see that some will cost thousands of pounds and be works of art, giving your room a natural edge.
Alternatively, people are now starting to go for more modern fireplaces with neon lights, stones, and different colored flames; some can look very contemporary in a room filled with glass and chrome. However, more people do still tend to go for the traditional wooden look even if they do have a modern room design. One of the newest features in room design now is to have the TV as the focal point. Some new, expensive TVs with chrome surround them are extremely thin. They can even have aquariums or fireplaces displayed on the screen as a screen saver via blu ray are becoming popular. The problem with this is that when you sell your house, you will want to take your expensive TV with you, meaning that your focal point disappears from the room.
Any kind of old architectural feature within a room is perfect for a focal point; it doesn’t have to be a fireplace or an actual object necessarily; it can simply be the wooden beams on the ceiling, a design on the ceiling, a picture on the wall or a chandelier.
