1. USE A CLASSIC SCREEN
Traditional ideas are often some of the best, and decorative screens have been used in interior decorating as room dividers for many centuries. Ornately decorated, lacquered, detailed with fine threads or paintwork, and woven from cane or bamboo, these beautiful interior pieces of furniture are exceptionally useful, because they can easily be picked up and moved, and reconfigured to suit any space.
2. CHOSE PRACTICAL SHELVING
A more modern take on dividers is shelves. Shelving can be a simple and functional solution for dividing a living room and creating separated zones. Free-standing shelves come in many highly stylized designs and can be decorated to create an office-type zone in the living room, or they can be styled with objects, artworks, houseplants and design books to create a chicer and more minimal look to the division.
3. GET CREATIVE WITH FURNITURE
Elisabeth Rogoff, principal at Champalimaud Design, explains that the trick to creating visual division is, ‘To make each area an extension of the last while giving each module a distinct personality so you are drawn into the next area with a sense of curiosity and don’t feel jarred or confused when you make the transition.’
4. CHOSE A CONSOLE
How you configure your furniture is a brilliant way to subtly, but clearly, create different zoning areas in your living room. Console tables are great pieces of furniture to divide a sitting room between a relaxing, chilling area to an office or eating area. By their very nature and design the length and breadth of a console table ensure they simply create division.
5. MAKE SPACE FOR MULTIPLE SEATING AREAS
Seating can offer a different perspective to the division of a sitting room, by simply choosing different types of seating. You can create a plethora of division that although separate, feels joined up by the very fact of the furniture offering the same solution.
6. INVEST IN STATEMENT STEEL-FRAMED DOORWAYS
Having a large living room is a joyful thing, but often working out how to create stylish division can give you a headache! It can provide you with plenty of space to entertain and get away from family at Christmas, but it can be tricky to make it feel joined up and cozy.
7. TAKE A MODERN APPROACH WITH SLATTED SCREENS
Design is ever evolving, from the brilliant and much-used decorative screens from previous centuries, new designs born from classical features such as screens offer a contemporary slant on an original design.
8. USE COLOR TO CREATE ZONES
'Zoning is so useful within our homes and makes our living space so much more flexible. So many rooms are dual-use now, think studies in bedrooms, kitchen-diners, living rooms with children’s play spaces, etc. The quickest, most effective way to create a definition between spaces is using paint'.
9. HANG CURTAINS IN A CONTRASTING COLOR
Think out of the box when it comes to divider ideas, curtains can become dividers, and depending on the fabric, they can offer dark, heavy dividers so that a zone can become snug, or they could be light and airy, offering more of a suggestion of division.