6 hacks to decorate oddly shaped rooms

Generally, houses have rooms that are either rectangular or square in shape with walls at 90 degree angles, but what if yours doesn’t? How can you begin to decorate a room with an odd shape, low sloped ceilings and unusual angles?

Don’t fret if you have a challenging space at your house. There are many ways to make the most of these kinds of awkward spaces, and create inviting and interesting rooms that stand out for the right reasons. You just need to learn a few hacks for making the most of an oddly shaped area.

Divide & conquer

You know you can’t decorate a strangely-shaped room the ordinary way—placing a couch along this wall and a bookshelf on the other. So, what can you do? Start by dividing the room into more manageable sections.

If the room is large enough, divide it into a space for lounging and watching TV and use the other space for reading or as a study area. This way you can use different types of furnishings in each space to separate them, making it easier to arrange furniture in each section in a conventional way, at the same time as using the space wisely.

Partitions and dividers are another way to create segments and make an oddly-shaped room look less strange. Free-standing book shelves are a great way to divide a room and create different defined areas.

No matter what you use to segment the room, take advantage of the odd shape to create the illusion of more living space in your home or apartment.

Have consistency

You can create a more unified look to the room with consistency. This means using the same window coverings, doors, colour scheme and other décor to give it a uniform appearance and tie the seperate sections together nicely.

All design elements need to match including furniture, trim and wall colours. Don’t create an accent wall as it will throw off the balance and take away from the overall harmony of the look.

Consider custom made furniture

Whether you have an apartment, small flat or large home with oddly-shaped rooms, consider having some pieces of furniture custom made. You can have unique pieces made that create a focal point for a room, or have a custom piece designed to fit in a particularly difficult to fill area of a room, like the custom shelving and wall niches below. There are many companies that make custom-made furnishings for all rooms of the home, even outdoor furniture.

Create a focal point

Rugs are a great way to create a focal point and draw the eyes away from harsh corners or other elements of strangely-shaped rooms. The rug draws the eye off the edges of the room and pulls them into the centre.

You can use any furnishing as your focal point. If you want your television or your overstuffed chair as the focal point, then place it in the middle of the room and decorate around it. Just make sure you put any furniture intended as a focal-point in an obvious spot in the room.

Use a disguise

Awkward-shaped rooms often have harsh angles and strange corners. You can disguise these by using round furniture. Using rounded furniture takes the focus off the odd corners and places it onto the furniture. Plants are another good way to disguise areas you don’t want to draw attention to.

You’ll find the room will look less odd when the focus is taken off any sharp angles. You can also use different types of furniture or items as disguises too. Use easels, a bench seat or reading chairs to give a strange corner its own purpose and instantly turn a cosy little nook into a more usable space.

Use the right colour scheme

The right colour scheme is important when working with odd shaped rooms and awkward walls. For example, sloping walls and ceilings need to appear more open, so using a crisp white colour palette can help with that. Steer well clear of dark shades these will make the space feel closed off and small. Also, using a semi-gloss paint helps reflect light throughout the room.

Using earth tones can also help pull the room together, so it doesn’t look so odd. Colours like beige, dark blue and light grey sets the walls into the background and takes the focus off the room’s shape.

Even if you have an oddly-shaped room, don’t think it’s impossible to work with. You can make it into the highlight of your home or apartment. When decorated thoughtfully, the shape of the room becomes unimportant.

Get creative and try different ideas until you find something that works best for you and your unconventional space.

For more home decor tips take a look at our guides to make over small spaces and decorate open plan living areas.