The living room today is a hard-working space. It’s where we spend most of our leisure time – relaxing, reading, watching TV – but it’s also where we entertain friends and family. We want this multipurpose room to feel warm, comfortable and inviting, whatever we’re using it for.
Our Colour of the Year Soulful Sage™ makes a great starting point for any decorative living room scheme. Warm, cleansing and uplifting, it can brighten the mood of the darkest space and bring an on-trend look to your home – whether it’s traditional or contemporary. Used it on its own, Soulful SageTM can create an elegant and versatile backdrop for any interior style – Scandinavian, Japandi or modern classic, for example. Combined with the shades in Dulux new colour stories – Glow, Light and Lift, it offers limitless potential for creating a living room look you’ll love.
Dulux ready-made colour stories make things easy. Once you’ve picked your favourite, just follow this simple guidance to combine colours successfully: use the lighter shades as your base and, the more saturated tones as accents.
Whether you’re after a cosy colour scheme or something pared back and sophisticated, read on for living room paint colour ideas that will transform your home.
What lies behind Dulux colour stories? Wide-ranging research, global trend monitoring and years of colour expertise. For 2027, Dulux colour experts have designed three on-trend palettes that offer you ingenious and practical colour ideas for your home. These easy-to-use combinations – all of which include Dulux Colour of the Year – offer you a shortcut to three different moods.
This year, the colour stories focus on light tones. These are perfect to use as base colours, with the additional darker shades included to help you add personality and contrast. It’s all about giving you the tools to create a colour scheme that works for you and that can make you, and your home, feel lighter and brighter.
When so much of life is lived online, we want our homes to be personal, tangible spaces where we can feel rooted and at ease. Dulux Glow colour story is responding to this need with a palette of warm tones that are familiar and comforting.
Based on natural, earthy shades, Glow paint colours work brilliantly in a living room. They can bring warmth and comfort even to a North-facing room at the same time as maximising the sunlight.
Here, light terracotta has been used for the walls and ceiling to give a cosy, cocooning effect, while a cabinet painted in Colour of the Year 2027 Soulful Sage™ adds a freshening dash of green.
How to master a cosy look:
Use colour on walls, ceilings and woodwork to get that wraparound effect
Incorporate soft green Soulful Sage™ for a harmonious colour contrast
Add furnishings in warm, natural materials to complete the look
A simple, pared-back colour scheme can turn your living room into the perfect healing retreat when life gets on top of you. Dulux Light colour story offers a palette of gentle tones that can help reduce visual clutter and quieten the atmosphere to give you space to think.
This light, neutral colour scheme works well with many contemporary interior styles – particularly those that favour a simple, natural look, such as Japandi, Scandi or Nordic designs.
Here, two grey-browns create an elegant split wall effect, while Soulful Sage™ adds a touch of natural brightness at the doorway. Painted the same colour as the wall around it, the cabinet almost disappears – a clever way of further simplifying the décor.
How to create this healing atmosphere:
Use light, natural neutrals as your base colours
Add a touch of Soulful SageTM to bring calming colour
Paint furniture in the same colour as the walls to reduce visual clutter
Home is the perfect place to indulge our creativity but we need inspiring spaces to spark our imaginations. Dulux Lift colour story offers a collection of upbeat tones and neutrals that can be combined with Soulful Sage™ to create any number of uplifting colour schemes.
Yellowy ochre, soft pink, sage green – this on-trend colour combination feels fresh, appealing and unexpected. Whether you’re after a mid-century look, boho chic or just want to do your own thing, these colours will work brilliantly in the background.
Upbeat colour can make any living room feel positive and light-hearted. And why not use it in unexpected places? Here, the main walls have been painted in a soft, neutral clay, with bolder colour kept for the ceiling and the feature wall – painted in Dulux Colour of the Year Soulful SageTM. A darker, warm green also adds eye-catching contrast at the doorway.
Finished with curvy furniture and colourful details, this is a living room that’s bound to lift your spirits.
How to get the light-hearted look:
Set bold, upbeat tones against neutrals to lift the feel of a room
Try a painted ceiling for a surprise burst of colour overhead
Mix and match colourful and curvy furniture to add personality to the space
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Colour Story | Emotional Benefit | Practical Benefit |
|---|---|---|
Glow | Warmth and ease | Increased comfort |
Light | Cleansing and healing | Calm |
Lift | Inspiration and creativity | Lifted spirits |
Greens | Serenity and depth | Reduced stress and improved focus |
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