Pasadena Showcase House Designer: Top Tips to Making Your Living Room a Room Well Lived In

For the upcoming Pasadena Showcase House of Design, Interior Designer Louise O’Malley was tasked with designing the Living Room, Bar and Main Hallway.

This year’s Showcase takes place at the Boddy House, a 22-room Hollywood Regency style mansion on the lush botanical grounds of the Descanso Gardens in nearby La Cañada Flintridge.

The House is open for public tours from late April through mid-May.

Los Angeles-based O’Malley tackled the “grand room” knowing full well its importance in the House.

She offers three helpful design tips in creating your own family’s living room, as illustrated by her techniques at the Showcase House.

First Things First

O’Malley chose two antique chairs that were consistent with her color palette and let the design flow naturally.

From there, O’Malley selected two large red sofas that center the focus of the room, and figure as statement pieces in a living room as spacious as the one in the Boddy House.

If you’ve got designer’s block, head to the furniture store and pick out some large items, like a couch. The big items serve as an entry point into the design process that will make the color scheme and space organization much less intimidating.

Use the Space

Living rooms are often the biggest in the home. We host, we watch TV until the break of dawn, we have intense one-on-ones, we live in living rooms.

You can make the most of the space by creating separate seating areas for the living room’s varied functions.

O’Malley put two large couches across from each other in the middle of the room—perfect for inviting your favorite family members and friends over. There’s a circular wooden table by the piano where you can lay out that 2,000 piece puzzle you got for Christmas. Invite your business partner or have “the talk” with your kid in the two plush seats by the window.

Let your living room live up to its potential.

See this room and much more at The Pasadena Showcase House of Design. It takes place from April 21st to May 19th. Enjoy inspiring design, innovative new products and indulge your inner “looky-loo.”

The Showcase House also features an onsite restaurant and shopping opportunities at the “Shops at Showcase.”

Click here for tickets or call (714) 442-3872.

For more about designer Louse O’Malley, please see louiseomalley.com or call (310) 922-5789.