August 19, 2022, 3:10 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
From Workshop to Living Room: The rugged yet cozy charm of old industrial buildings offers a unique individuality unmatched by any other interior design style. With our tips, you can bring the industrial style into your living room.
Exposed brickwork with bright red bricks, raw floors, high ceilings, and pipes with chipped paint are desirable and definitely pleasing to the eye, but not necessarily essential for a living room in the industrial style. With the right colors, shapes, materials, furniture, and accessories, the space can become a trendy loft even without perfect architectural conditions. And even if at first glance it seems like a workshop is being called a living room, this space still exudes plenty of coziness and charm.
1. Play of Different Colors
To bring a living room in the industrial style to life, a certain palette of colors is needed. Dark tones like gray, anthracite, brown, or black are characteristic of this decor style. Deep dark blue, green, or red are also common choices for wall colors. All these shades shape the rugged, cool, and rough character of the industrial style.
However, to ensure the living room doesn’t lack coziness, a warm, friendly counterbalance is needed. This is best achieved with an olive green wall, a cognac brown leather sofa, or a cream-colored carpet on the floor. Additional colorful accents in sunny yellow, rust red, or orange bring even more warmth into the room.
If this seems too wild for one’s personal taste, one can alternatively opt for a powder tone like nude or the slightly cooler mint. Despite the variety of colors, there should still be enough white and gray areas in the room, as this interplay is typical of the industrial style.
2. Mix Rough with Soft Materials
For an authentic industrial style in your own living room, it’s important to incorporate a variety of materials into the design. But not just any materials—primarily, striking metals and charismatic solid woods dominate the look. Furniture made from untreated wood with dark steel frames couldn’t fit better into the loft ambiance.
Furniture pieces made from wire mesh and accessories made from cast iron or enamel are also recommended. For some time now, solid room dividers made from a glass-steel frame construction have been part of the basic equipment of an industrial living room, especially if you don’t actually live in a loft with oversized factory windows. Glass elements in the room, such as wall elements, but also display cabinets and coffee tables, can be made from clear or frosted glass.
A concrete floor appears purist yet equally aesthetic. However, natural stone and parquet floors add a bit more liveliness. Softness and plenty of coziness are brought into the room by home textiles like cushions, blankets, curtains, and rugs. A cozy fur on the comfortable smooth leather sofa is almost obligatory in an industrial living room.
3. Involve Furniture with an Individual Touch
Individuality is the hallmark of the industrial style. The living room furnishings need not be perfect; they can be peppered with flaws, scratches, and other signs of use. Therefore, old furniture pieces with a wild patina, sourced from grandma’s attic, flea markets, or estate sales, are more than welcome in an industrial-style living room.
Especially furniture that was actually acquired from former factory stocks brings the original flair of bygone times into your own four walls. A workbench becomes a dresser, a locker provides more storage space, and a swivel stool serves as a coffee table next to the Chesterfield armchair.
Nearby, old wine and fruit crates stack up as a shelf for the record collection. DIY furniture made from pallets, with their rough texture, is also a staple of an industrial setup. In this distinctive living room, old meets new and used meets homemade in a skillful blend.
Also interesting: 6 Tips for Designing a Minimalist Living Room
4. Special Lighting for Special Spaces
In terms of lighting, the industrial style fully aligns with original settings. Oversized industrial lights made of metal hang on heavy, coarse chains over the coffee table.
The old paint is already peeling off the lampshade, revealing some rust spots here and there. Additionally, a scissor lamp stands next to the sofa, which can be adjusted for optimal reading light.
Lampshades in simple conical shapes made from enameled sheet steel—often in bright colors—are also representative of the industrial character. Bare bulbs on vibrant cables hang individually or in groups from the ceiling, creating atmospheric lighting accents in the industrial living room.
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5. Set Accents with Accessories
Only with accessories does a living room become a true haven of comfort—even in the industrial style. Here, too, certain items in the room perfectly underscore the loft character. Foremost, metallic objects shape the look, such as an old station clock on the wall, tin signs with colorful retro prints, interlocking gears, or oversized vintage letters from old advertising signs.
And with accessories, it’s also advisable in the industrial living room to combine old with new. Contemporary design objects like stylish vases, bowls, or candle holders bring the old ambiance into the modern era. Aesthetes will fully appreciate the visual appeal.
Green plants strategically set accents in the room and can be displayed in their full range. From ceiling-high potted plants to hanging succulents and mini cacti, everything is allowed.