Inspiration needed for living room revamp...

[twolittlemonkeys]

Hope you can help me, my living room is really bland and contains many elements generally frowned upon among MNers with good taste in decor.

Currently has oak laminate flooring (there when we bought the house) chocolate brown leather sofas (not my favourite but good for wiping clean as I have messy little boys). Walls are beigey-light brown and curtains are chocolate brown (again, as they were when we moved in). I desperately want to inject some life into this room, but can't afford to put in new flooring. Can any of you give me some pointers for paint colours, soft furnishings etc which I could use to make it a more welcoming room? Thanks! :)

[twolittlemonkeys]

Oh I should add, I don't have a big budget sadly.

[bacon]

Concentrate on doing the feature wall. I went for a bold harlequin wallpaper thats has big print. My sofa is brown with oak floor. I went for loud reds/bronze and blacks. The curtains dont match but co-ordinate which stops that twee look. The rest of the walls are 'stone'.

The biggest expence was the wallpaper which was around £40 a roll but worth every penny - I like drama! The paint was reasonable.

[lalalonglegs]

I think pale grey-blues go well with oak and brown. I would definitely get rid of the curtains and inject a great more colour in terms of rugs/cushions/curtains etc. Very bright colours can work well -lime green/fuchsia/aqua-turquoise/tangerine etc. If that sounds a bit scary, just buy one or two accessories at first and build it up as you get used to them - if you don't get used to them you can always choose another pallette.

[twolittlemonkeys]

Yes the curtains are my biggest bugbear in the room, they just feel so dark.

bacon there isn't really a wall that could be used as a feature wall IMO as the room is an odd shape and the wall that the fireplace is on is a very long one which goes into the room at an angle. (sounds bizarre, very hard to describe)

[kbaby]

I agree with the others, you can keep the walls the same colour and jazz it up with new curtains and cushions. Green, plum and teal will all go with brown sofa and cream walls. You could look at websites for colour combos and then find cheaper alternatives. Next online is a good one for ideas.

I've got wood floors, cream walls, a duck egg blue chimney breast and cream settee, I've then added colour with duck egg curtains, cushions and vases etc

[RachelHRD]

Echo teal with browns - Next have some lovely teal accessories and these curtains are nice

[Sushiqueen]

We have a similar colour scheme - not changing ours at the moment as hous eis on the market.

We have light curtains though rather than dark ones and injected colour by putting down a beige and red rug on the floor as well as red cushions. Dh wasn't convinced when I persuaded him to get the rug but he now loves the bit of colour it brings into the room.

We got the smaller version of this rug from M&S
www.marksandspencer.com/Marks-and-Spencer-Large-Scroll/dp/B004FL37EG?ie=UTF8&ref=sr_1_29&nodeId=430720031&sr=1-29&qid=1300364108