30 White Living Room Ideas That Create a Fresh, Modern Look

Create the contemporary space of your dreams with these white living room design ideas.

A white living room not only looks clean and modern, it also acts as a blank canvas to showcase your personal design style. A white ceiling and walls can clear the way for a beautiful area rug or a large-scale art print to be the focal point of the room. You can even choose colorful statement furniture to stand out against the white in your living room.

Ultimately, a white living room can make home look more organized and polished, and will help minimize clutter. To inspire your next living room refresh, we're sharing our best white living room ideas that can be easily adapted to fit your aesthetic.

Related: 41 Living Room Ideas to Make Your Gathering Space Your Favorite Place

Neutral White Living Room

Complement white living room walls with neutral furniture and accents, such as a light gray area rug. The stand outs in this room are two leather armchairs, but they pair well with the subdued, neutral tones used throughout the room.

Related: 18 Neutral Living Room Ideas That Are Anything but Boring

Elegant Living Room

The rich emerald green of the sofa in this white living room instantly elevates the space and adds easy elegance. Other luxurious details, like vintage armchairs and a plush white area rug, complete the sophisticated design.

Related: Shades of Green: Best Paint Colors for Olive, Sage, Mint, and More

White Living Room with Dark Floors

Dark wood floors can add an interesting point of contrast in a white living room, but it’s also possible that they’ll make the room look smaller. If you have darker floors, you can easily get around this by placing a large area rug in the room, like this rattan option, which will bring light back into the space.

Related: What Goes with Wood Floors? 10 Stylish Decorating Ideas to Try

Living Room Fireplace Decor

Update a fireplace to give it a more modern look by surrounding it with a simple white frame. This relatively easy upgrade helps the fireplace match the surrounding shelves and light colors used throughout the room without needing any major renovations.

Related: 22 White Fireplace Ideas for a Bright Focal Point

Seasonal White Living Room Ideas

Easily change your white living room to match the current season by swapping out simple decor items, like faux branches and other accents. This space matches the autumn colors outside with brown velvet throw pillows and large, abstract art with shades of brown.

Related: 24 Rustic Living Room Ideas for a Cozy Retreat

Highlight Wood Floors

Blonde wood floors fit best with a white living room because they complement the colors used on the walls and ceiling. They also make the room feel more organic and natural, which is helped even further with the addition of large potted plants.

Related: 8 Paint Colors That Pair Beautifully with Yellow Wood Floors

White Living Room Shelves

White living room walls are a perfect backdrop if you have other decor items you want to showcase. This room uses small shelves to create gallery-style walls lined with framed photos and prints, with white acting as a neutral background color.

Related: 15 Stylish Floating Shelf Ideas for Displaying Art and Accessories

Decorate Around Statement Furniture

Easily create contrast in a white living room by choosing dark furniture, such as this navy blue couch. As your sense of style changes or if you choose to update the furniture, it’ll still work in the neutral color scheme.

Statement-Making Fireplace

If you want to break up white walls a little, consider leaving your fireplace a different color, like this gray stone fireplace. When paired with exposed wood beams, it adds enough contrast in the room to keep the white paneled walls and ceiling from feeling bare.

Related: 34 Beautiful Fireplace Ideas for Cozy Warmth All Year Long

White Living Room with Vaulted Ceilings

A grand vaulted ceiling opens up this living room space, and painting it white helps emphasize the airiness in the room. Since the wood floors, leather chairs, and gray couches ground the room, the white ceiling and walls help add brightness.

Related: These Vaulted Ceiling Ideas Create a Dramatic Living Space

Colorful White Living Room

A huge benefit of a white living room is that it provides a neutral palette to show off lots of colors that might otherwise clash. This room may have white walls, but it has plenty of color thanks to a bold blue door, blue area rug, and multicolored throw pillows.

Decorate with Blue Accents

With lots of natural light, a predominantly white color scheme emphasizes the brightness of this living room. However, modern touches, like the black fireplace and small touches of blue throughout the room on throw pillows and blankets, make the space feel polished and cozy.

Modern White Living Room Ideas

Keep your white living room totally modern by accenting it with bold colors and patterns. The bright, abstract art print adds brilliant color to the space, while the black and white diamond area rug adds contrast and visual interest.

Related: 12 Modern Living Room Ideas That Are Anything But Boring

White Living Room with Dark Furniture

A black couch is a great point of contrast in this otherwise white living room. The darker couch also ties in with other elements of the room, such as the wood frame mirror above the fireplace and the wood end table in the corner.

Related: The 11 Best Couches for Small Spaces of 2023

High Living Room Ceilings

Using white paint in your living room brightens the space and also emphasizes any natural light in the room. This is especially true in this room with higher-than-average ceilings, which is grounded with matching yellow chairs and gray sofa.

Related: Our Best Tips for Selecting a Ceiling Color That Suits Your Space

Pink Living Room Decor

If you want to incorporate the millennial pink trend into your living room, pairing it with white can help it look classy and elegant. Pink accents on the chairs, rug, and throw pillows also complement the boho style of the furniture and light fixtures in the room.

Related: 39 Pink Room Decor Ideas to Use Throughout Your Home

Maximalist White Living Room Ideas

One way to keep your white living room from feeling too sterile is to fill it with statement pieces, like a large leather sofa and wooden shelves. This adds the opportunity to bring more color into the room with decorative items like vases, throw pillows, blankets, and large plants.

Related: 21 Maximalist Rooms That Master the Over-the-Top Style

Living Room Gallery Wall

Make use of the blank canvas that white walls present, and use them to display an assortment of pictures and decorative items. This white living room is livened up with a gallery wall filled with botanical art and woven baskets.

Related: How to Pick the Perfect Art for Your Gallery Wall

Colorful White Living Room

Though this living room has white walls and a white ceiling, thanks to the variety of color from the furniture and decor, it doesn’t feel like a completely white room. The orange-yellow and purple area rug adds richness to the color scheme, and complements the blue-cushioned chairs in the center of the room.

Related: 20 Living Room Furniture Layouts That Make the Most of Your Space

Relaxing White Living Room

Some white living rooms can feel bright and bold, but if you choose a softer white for the walls, like this room, it’ll help create a more relaxing yet still sophisticated look. Soft colors complement the slightly yellow-white in this room, such as a light gray couch and pale wood coffee table.

Related: The 10 Best White Paint Colors That Experts Swear By

Add Patterned Accents

Use a white living room to show off one of your favorite patterned accents like this design. The geometric design on the area rug instantly draws the eye thanks to contrasting black and white colors, and it matches the shapes used in the macrame wall hanging to create a cohesive look.

Sophisticated White Living Room

Neutral white walls and a light area rug covering a dark wood floor really help the sophisticated furniture pieces in this room stand out. The blue patterned couch immediately catches the eye, and a chandelier-style light fixture helps emphasize the easy elegance.

Related: 33 Living Room Color Schemes for a Cozy, Livable Space

White Fireplace Ideas

If your living room has a fireplace but you’re thinking of painting the room white, you can update the fireplace to match. In this room, the fireplace is covered with white wood panels, which helps it match the rest of the room and avoids breaking up the stretch of white walls with a tall column of brick.

White Living Room with Dark Built-Ins

Pair the two most popular contrasting colors—black and white—to create a sleek, modern living room. The white walls in this room act as a counterpoint to the wall of black shelves along one wall, plus the dark trim and light fixtures.

Related: 31 Built-In Bookshelf Ideas for Every Room in Your Home

Open Concept Living Room

White walls can be a smart choice if your living room is open concept, because the neutral color can naturally transition into other areas of your home, like a stairwell or loft. This idea leaves the living room primarily white, then adds contrast at the staircase with wood stairs and black backing.

Related: Pros and Cons of Open Floor Plans: 5 Things to Consider

White Living Room Ceiling

This white living room includes blue details, such as the area rug and art print, to help transition into the next part of the house. Just outside the living room is a navy counter space with stools, which helps connect the color scheme between the living room and the rest of the home.

Related: Designers Share Favorite Gray, Blue, and Other Ceiling Paint Colors

Embrace Wood Accents

Add warmth to a white room by contrasting the white walls with wood floors and ceiling panels. If you’re hesitant to go completely white in a room, leaving a few elements such as wood trim, panels, or even picture frames can help prevent the space from feeling cold.

Related: Wood Paneling Is Back: How to Incorporate the Retro Look in Your Home

Living Room Area Rug

An easy way to add lots of color to a white living room is by placing a large area rug. The blue rug in this room provides just enough balance to the white walls to keep them from feeling stale, and provides a matching accent for other details in the room, like throw pillows and planters.

Related: How to Choose the Perfect Area Rug for Your Room

White Built-In Shelves

Though the main color in this living room is white, built-in shelves covering one wall provide lots of opportunities to add color through decor. Potted plants, blue velvet chairs, and a gold coffee table all help to enliven this modern living room.

Related: 9 Ideas for Built-Ins Around a Fireplace that Add Character and Storage

Wood Paneled Ceiling

Panels in both the living room and dining room help transition between the two in this open-concept home. In the living room, the ceiling panels are painted white to add brightness and cohesion, while the dining room leaves the wood ceiling and trim natural for a smooth connection between the two.

Related: 20 Wood Ceiling Ideas That Add Rustic Charm

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