A lot of time is spent in the living room in the company of relatives or friends, so it is important to rationally approach the choice of furniture for storing things and necessary accessories. When choosing furniture that will allow you to hide things that are unnecessary at the moment and show accessories and decorative items in a favorable light, you should focus on design and practicality. The most suitable choice for this situation is modern slide walls in the living room. They combine versatility with a minimalist design that doesn't detract from the items you want to display.
Walls have gained popularity due to the large number of convenient shelves and cabinets for storing necessary and not so necessary things; today they are found in almost any interior designed in a modern style. In order for the slides for the living room to serve as long as possible and please the eye, blending harmoniously into the decor of the room, you need to be able to choose them correctly.
Modern wall slides in the living room
How do modern walls differ from older models?
Wall cabinets for the living room, which can often be seen in photos of interiors, were a popular piece of furniture back in the last century. The models that stood in Soviet apartments did not have an interesting design and were similar to each other. The walls were produced by stamping in large quantities; it was difficult to find furniture with an original design.
Modern slide walls are modular furniture and are made to order in any style and color scheme. However, you can choose ready-made and assembled walls in the store or order furniture that exactly matches your wishes in color, number of elements, width and depth of shelves and drawers. You will not find a slide created according to individual sketches in any other apartment.
Living room furniture
Modern wall slide in the living room interior
The currently popular wall models also differ in terms of compartments for storing things. The shelves and drawers are spacious despite their compact appearance. Thanks to modern fasteners, you can easily assemble a wall “from start to finish” at home, without resorting to professional help.
Modular wall elements
Living room without TV: variations on the theme of the compositional center
What can replace the TV?
1. A fireplace , including a fake one.
Design: Lavka-Design
Design: Ariana Akhmad and Tatyana Karyakina
2. Large mirror. It can be floor or wall. In any case, a large mirror will effectively mark the central point.
3. TV stand with decor. We are talking about standard and very common low cabinets on which television panels are placed or above them.
This item can be placed on the side or opposite the sofa - a long, low cabinet looks great even without a TV. A suitable design for it would be paintings or posters that visually elevate the composition.
4. Other low furniture with decor. A console, a chest of drawers, a low shelf, a cabinet or something else - the main thing is that this piece of furniture is quite impressive. When decorating, as in the case of a TV stand, they use paintings, posters, panels (a kind of TV substitute).
Advantages of slides
It is obvious that wall slides for living rooms have many advantages, thanks to which they are so popular in modern interiors. Why do people choose such furniture:
- minimalistic design, compactness and large capacity;
- mobility - wall parts can be swapped without much effort;
- beautiful appearance;
- the ability to choose a wall that matches any living room design;
- a wide range of shapes, materials, colors and textures.
Types of walls
What kind of slide walls can be used for living rooms in a modern style? Furniture stores offer many models to suit every taste and budget. In large rooms you can use corner walls; for small living rooms they are not suitable - the closet will take up two walls and will only clutter the space, making it even smaller.
Separately, it is worth highlighting straight wall models and U-shaped ones. The choice of one configuration or another depends entirely on the availability of free space in the living room. Mini slides fit well into small rooms; they are quite narrow and consist of only a few sections. Such walls are compact and will easily fit even in the smallest living room.
Important: before purchasing a slide wall, be sure to think in advance for what purpose you plan to use it. The number of elements, the overall shape of the cabinet and its dimensions depend on this. If you order a slide that is too small, and over time you will need to store a lot more things, you won’t be able to quickly adapt it to new needs.
Modern mini-wall slides in the living room are suitable for minimalist styles due to the simplicity of their forms and minimal decor. The most practical wall configuration is a separate shelf for the TV and several bookshelves. This is a simple and inexpensive option that fits perfectly into any interior design, compact and functional. You can see what modern mini-walls of a slide look like in the living room interior in the presented photos.
Modular slides are more practical. You can easily swap modules, add new shelves and drawers, or remove unnecessary items depending on your current needs. You don't have to buy new cabinets to store a large number of things, just purchase a few additional modules. This approach will save space in the room and money.
Modular cabinets usually consist of a chest of drawers for clothes and linen, a minibar, a niche for a TV, a closed cabinet with transparent doors for services and open corner shelves for books, photo albums and decorative accessories.
Important: when choosing a new wall for the living room, decide in advance on its location. Will the entire wall stand on the floor, or will all the shelves and cabinets be wall-mounted and not take up space below?
Living room without a TV: filling the furniture TV niche
There's another reason why some of us are hesitant to ditch the TV in our living rooms. Ready-made furniture structures (walls and mini-walls) often have a niche. It is understood that a TV should be installed in this niche. But this is a wrong interpretation. In fact, it’s not “should be”, but “maybe”. If the owners don’t need a TV, why introduce it into this niche? There are other ways to fill it out. What, for example?
- A vase or combination of vases;
- Composition of candles;
- Large and spectacular table lamp;
- An item of retro technology (instead of a TV, you can put, for example, an old record player or radio);
- Soft mattress and pillows. This will turn the niche into a cozy seat.
Design: Special Style Bureau
Wall styles
It’s impossible to talk about different types of modern slides for living rooms without mentioning the variety of styles. Depending on the design of the room and your taste preferences, you can choose furniture in the following styles:
- Art Nouveau is one of the most popular styles; modern slides are distinguished by their simplicity of composition combined with beautiful wavy lines and outlines;
- walls in high-tech style are distinguished by their external compactness coupled with large capacity; furniture often combines several materials and is made in unusual shades;
- Provence is distinguished by an abundance of abrasions and roughness; natural wood or its high-quality imitations are used as the main materials;
- Oriental-style slides are replete with decorative elements, often their surface is decorated with gold ornaments;
- classic models are particularly strict; only natural materials and colors are used for their design; keep in mind that such slides are quite massive and angular, so they will look too bulky in small living rooms.
Examples of slides in the living room, made in different styles, can be seen in the photo.
Of course, how long the selected furniture will serve you is directly affected by the quality of the material from which it is made. Most often, the walls are made of MDF, chipboard, natural wood, plastic or glass and metal. Each material differs in strength and durability, as well as in water resistance and resistance to fading and abrasion of the material.
If you want to purchase a wall made of real wood, be sure to pay attention to the species. For example, pine is too soft and is not very durable, while hard wood (oak, walnut) is stronger and more resistant to various damages.
Some walls have an outer covering of natural wood veneer, but the base is made of a different material. The most common example of such a combination is chipboard and wood or SP, consisting of pine and plywood. Such furniture will cost less, but its service life leaves much to be desired - 5 years.
Since wood is an extremely vulnerable material to moisture and mold, it is often varnished or laminated. This surface is easier to clean, it is not afraid of chemical cleaners, temperature changes, and the color lasts better and does not fade longer.
Living room without TV: bet on the layout
To make the living room look self-sufficient and complete, you can give preference to a parallel arrangement of upholstered furniture . For example, place two sofas opposite each other or an armchair opposite the sofa. If there is a window on one side of the room and an entrance to the room on the other, there will simply be no room left for the TV, and its absence will be perceived as absolutely logical and natural.
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Don't be afraid to break stereotypes. Whoever owns the interior is the one who commands it. Don't have the habit of watching TV in the living room? Then just don't put it there. You can form a compositional center and fill the void without it.
Wall slide to order
In stores you can find many options for slides for the living room, but sometimes even among a wide range it is difficult to choose what meets your personal expectations. Custom-made furniture will fit better into the interior of the living room, since it will be made taking into account all the design features of the room. What are the advantages of such furniture:
- You can be sure that you will get exactly what you need down to the last screw.
- The wall will be made taking into account the size of the room and its design. Custom-made furniture will help hide defects in the form of uneven ceilings or floors. The slide will be made taking into account all the nuances of the room.
- You will know for sure that you will not find any unpleasant surprises when installing the wall. Factory furniture may have defects or some defects. Sometimes it happens that the kit brought to you from the store is missing one or more parts. When ordering a slide individually, such risks are minimized.
- With the help of custom-made furniture, you can easily divide the living room into several zones.
However, custom-made furniture also has disadvantages. One of them is the high price. Walls made to individual specifications are much more expensive than the options presented in furniture stores. Repairs will also be expensive, since it is extremely difficult to find suitable components for custom-made furniture in a regular store.
Manufacturing materials, colors
Grace does not mean fragility: modern cabinet and modular furniture is made from safe and durable materials that can easily withstand heavy loads. A stable and durable design will last for many years, complementing and completing the interior, but only if it is convenient and comfortable to use.
Not so long ago, compact small walls for the living room were made only from solid natural wood. Today the choice of materials is much greater. Laminated chipboard, MDF, plastic and their various combinations were added to the array. Despite the fact that well-known manufacturers offer a wide variety of options for low walls, it is advisable to choose only those that do not stand out from the existing interior, but only complement it.
The optimal choice is lightweight materials, especially relevant for pieces of furniture that are mounted on the wall.
A universal option that easily fits into the interior, most often it has a light, warm and monochromatic color scheme. Cool shades also look beautiful, provided that the wall is made of high-quality material. Contrasting colors are used less frequently: as a rule, contrasting mini-walls in saturated colors are installed not in living rooms, but in children's rooms.
Inexpensive wall options
It is not always possible to purchase custom-made furniture; sometimes this puts too much strain on the family budget. But there is an alternative - inexpensive slides, which in appearance are in no way inferior to furniture made from elite types of wood. At the same time, such furniture is made from budget materials: MDF and fiberboard. The base is a panel of compressed wood shavings or fibers, lined with wood veneer.
Important: natural veneer is often replaced with plastic, which after special processing acquires the texture and pattern of natural wood. You can verify this by looking at photos of slides in living rooms decorated in a modern style.
The undeniable advantage of such a wall is its affordable price, which does not in any way affect the quality of the furniture. Modern synthetic materials are not only not inferior in strength to natural ones, but in a number of characteristics they often surpass them. Plastic is cheaper than wood, it weighs less, and is easier to maintain and repair.
Some wall parts are made of metal. Due to the high strength of the material, the slide profiles and fittings are made of metal. Often, transparent or frosted glass and mirrors are used as additional materials in production.
Wall configuration
According to their design, walls are divided into cabinet and built-in. The latter are installed in niches. The floor acts as the bottom of the cabinet, and the walls are the side faces. This is the most efficient method of using room space and is ideal for small living rooms. Built-in slides are made only to order strictly according to the dimensions of the niche.
Since the built-in wall does not require some parts, its cost is slightly lower than the cabinet one. There is only one downside to built-in slides - they require a niche in the wall.
Cabinet sets are fully equipped and are much more mobile than built-in walls, but they take up more space and require a flat floor.
