In any residential interior, the living room ends up being the heart of the home. It is the space where inhabitants spend the most amount of time and it ends up serving as a backdrop to a bulk of their lives.
With this knowledge, it is always the living room that is most carefully and lovingly decorated, set up so that it creates a welcoming environment that anyone would love to spend their time in.
In this scenario, having an obstructive element in your living room interior can feel like an insurmountable obstacle to achieving your ideal space.
A structural element like a pillar or column is one that cannot be demolished without compromising on the safety and stability of the home. It is vital to work around it, and consider it as a design challenge.
In the article below, you will find a number of ways you can utilize the presence of a pillar to your advantage, and how you can incorporate it into the overall design scheme of your living room.
Either visually or functionally, what was once an unwelcome obstruction can ultimately become a vital design feature of your living room, indispensable to the design of your home.
If a pillar cannot be concealed completely, it can instead be incorporated into the design in such a way that its presence seems intentional and not a mere accident of circumstance.
Let’s now see some ideas with original photos for hiding a pillar in your living room by incorporating it into your interior design.
Use a Pillar to Incorporate Seating
The primary feature of a living room is always the seating furniture and other features. This can include everything from sofas, couches and chairs to independent options like statement pieces, ottomans, poufs, benches and beanbags.
The options are endless and depend solely on your design sensibilities.
A great way to incorporate a free-standing pillar in the décor of your lounge, is by arranging your seating such that the pillar acts as an integral supporting element.
For instance, in the sample image, the space between the pillar and the wall houses a padded bench, serving the dual purpose of providing seating and keeping the living room space separate from the dining space.
The pillar appears to be an intentional addition to the space, defining the place at which the seating meets the walls.
Additionally, a false ceiling with a different material as compared to the rest of the ceiling also served to demarcate space and the presence of the pillar defines an origin point for the ceiling frame.
Introduce a Shelf Connected to Pillar
To take advantage of the full height of an available pillar, you can use it as a supporting member for a free-standing bookshelf.
A bookshelf is always a welcome addition to any living room interior. It provides some much-needed shelving for storage of items like books, picture frames, memorabilia and other decorative items.
In the case of larger, open concept spaces, a shelf can also act as a divider, separating the space into well-defined zones.
This strategy is especially recommended for spaces with higher-than-average ceilings. A taller intervention, like a bookshelf tends to make a much greater visual impact.
It divided the space, but without creating an intrusive bulky barrier.
The gaps between the shelves create a visual division, but with the unique feature of framing the views of the remaining space.
You can use this feature as a character defining element for your living room interior.
Customize a Dining Counter
For a pillar present in a living room, you can take this opportunity to introduce a secondary function into your living room interior.
Like in the sample image, you can utilize your pillar as a support to incorporate a dining counter into your interior design.
A dining counter can be a useful addition to a space, especially in the absence of a dining table. This is a strategy that comes recommended for spaces that are more compact, where one would seek to incorporate multifunctional design limits that serve maximum benefits while occupying minimum space.
Additionally, you can incorporate statement ceiling lights above your dining counter to highlight its presence as a functional zone of its own. Add a couple of bar stools, and some décor, and your dining counter is ready for use!
Incorporate Creepers and Vines
A hallmark of every living room interior is the sense of welcoming intimacy it brings to its inhabitants. It is a space that encourages people to come together and spend their time intersecting with each other in a shared space.
For this reason, it is always a welcome addition to add warm touches of décor to your living room interior.
You can accomplish this by incorporating indoor plants such as vines and creepers to grow along your pillars.
You can build cast-in-place planters around your pillars, and plant creepers that can then grow up the surfaces of the pillar. Over time, the resulting effect will be that of a living wall, covered in vegetation.
The presence of plants in a space has the tranquilizing effect of introducing touches of the natural world to a space that is otherwise enclosed away from it. A “green” pillar, like in the sample image, is sure to be a conversation starter for your living room design.
Use Pillar as Support for a Room Divider
In your living room space, you may want to separate some part of it to accommodate a secondary function.
This can be anything from a kitchenette, a study room, a play area, storage, or anything dictated by your specific needs.
In such a scenario, a pillar can serve as a support for a screen or partition to act as a room divider.
In the sample image, a statement screen in turquoise paneling with brass accents has been used to separate a portion of the living room interior for use as a kitchenette.
In this way, the pillar appears to be an integral part of the living room décor. Not merely imposing its presence on the space, but serving a vital purpose as a structural frame for defining the interior layout.
Add Cladding Materials to Integrate Pillar Into Decor
The main reason a pillar can stand out as an eyesore for a living room interior is that it is treated as exactly that.
In order to prevent it from drawing attention, people tend to leave it unornamented and bare. However, this makes it stand out even more, as it appears distinct from the otherwise carefully designed and curated space.
This is an easy fix, accomplished by accepting the pillar as an immovable part of the living room space, and planning to design it as such.
In the sample image, a focal wall in a brick finish stands out in the living room interior, in stark contrast to the ivory painted surfaces of the remaining walls.
The pillar, adorning similar finishes as that of the focal wall, appears to merge with the décor of the space, and as such, it almost conceals itself by virtue of its shared materiality.
Install Storage Cabinets With the Pillar
A living room, being the central space in any home, is one that experiences the most frequent usage by all residents. Because of that it is only natural that a lot of items need to be placed there for ease of use.
There are never any unwelcome storage solutions for a living room interior, and this is one such strategy that you can use to integrate your pillar into your décor.
By including cabinets, shelves, and counters., you can create as much storage space as you need. This can be used to store all manner of things from stationery, to cutlery, to toys, medicines and whatever else your needs dictate.
I recommend this solution for an interior that often appears cluttered. It may not be just that everything needs to be put away, it may just be that those things belong in the living room, and in that case, some room should be made for them.
In the sample image, you can see how the pillar can act as a supporting member for cabinets on a number of levels.
Display Art Along the Pillar Surfaces
Instead of viewing pillars in your living room space as items that need to be concealed from view, you can consider them as opportunities allowing you to explore new avenues of possible design interventions.
One such way of looking at the situation is by considering that pillars provide additional wall surfaces that you can choose to decorate according to your personal tastes and preferences.
You can choose to display wall art such as paintings, prints, posters and framed photographs.
In the sample image, the two pillars in the space have been curated as a gallery of framed art and other precious collectibles. The resulting effect is of a miniature gallery, geared towards the inhabitants of the home, a reflection of their tastes on display for them to enjoy fully.
I recommend this as a great way of personalizing a space, adding touches that correspond to the inhabitant’s particular tastes.
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