If you’re looking for small living room ideas, then you’ve come to the right place, my friend! Let’s face it – living downtown Toronto means my condo is small. Note the emphasis on small. 600-700 square feet, to be exact. I don’t really know why it ranges, but I’m guessing the balcony? Either way, it is small.

I’ve come to love it though, because it means Klay and I hang out in the same space a lot. I always joke that if we lived in a big house we’d retreat to our own spaces and rarely see each other. My love languages are physical touch and quality time, so you can see why I’m okay with a smaller living space. 😉 All that being said there are some drawbacks, like no room for my sewing studio (ugh), and lack of closet space (double ugh); but I’m an optimist so let’s focus on the positive!

My aim for this blog post is that if you live in a small space you realize there’s hope for you in terms of function and style; and that when you exit this post you’ll leave with some small living room ideas. Even if you live in a larger space, I still hope you get inspired by my living room home tour.

THE CHALLENGE
Our condo is pretty much centered around the living room. In fact, it’s really the only place to hang out (bedroom and kitchen aside). It’s where we read books, watch TV, listening to music, and entertain. But there’s one other key factor we had to consider when decorating: it needed to act as an office as well.

Being self employed means I work from home a lot, and when we started re-decorating we knew that Klay’s plan was to leave his job to go back to school. This meant we both needed desks. So the challenge was to transform our small living room into a cozy, beautiful and functional space. I’d say we won the challenge, wouldn’t you?

A few other things to note:
♥ We wanted a comfortable couch that could also act as a bed for guests. I’ve always been told Ikea couches are uncomfortable, but never owned one to know. Then Klay & I found this one, and guess what? It is comfortable and I love it. In fact, I’ve slept on it many times and have had amazing sleeps. Also, to our excitement, it has made for the perfect cuddle / movie-watching couch. It easily pulls out into a double bed so we can both put our feet up and don’t have to take turns enjoying the “L” side. Another bonus is that it has built in storage; which is key in a small space.
♥ We wanted the space to be budget friendly, without sacrificing style. The style part was non-negotiable for me, and with Klay going back to school we’d be down an income and didn’t want to blow all our savings on decor. I mean, we live downtown and what’s the point if we can’t go out and enjoy it? We did a really great job, if I do say so myself – and am grateful for Ikea and HomeSense for having such pretty and affordable pieces. To help in your search for small living room ideas, I’ll be sure to link all my affordable decor sources for you at the bottom of this post.