Home & decor
Drawing room decoration ideas in Bangladesh: layouts, walls, budget
10 min read
Key takeaways
Build a drawing room around one focal wall: put the carpet down first, a sofa about two-thirds the room's length, and one strong piece hung about 8 inches above it. Use light walls, two or three repeated colours and lamps, not one tube light. A ৳5,000 budget covers kantha cushions, a wall mat, a lamp and a plant.
On this page9
- How do you decorate a drawing room in Bangladesh?
- How do you lay out a drawing room?
- What should go on the drawing room wall?
- Which colours suit a drawing room?
- Which lights work best in a drawing room?
- How do you decorate a drawing room on a low budget?
- Which deshi pieces make a drawing room feel Bangladeshi?
- Which drawing room ideas should you skip?
- How do you protect drawing room decor in the monsoon?
How do you decorate a drawing room in Bangladesh?
Choose one wall to be the star, put a carpet down, and light the room with lamps instead of one tube light. In most Dhaka flats the drawing room is where guests sit, so it should look calm and finished from the front door. Skip the glass showcase crammed with showpieces and the heavy chandelier on a low ceiling. One good piece on the wall does more than twenty on a shelf.
Interior decorator Gulshan Nasrin gave the same first rule to bdnews24.com in January 2026: pick a focal point, such as the TV, a big window or a family keepsake, and arrange the furniture around whatever the eye finds first when someone walks in.
What drawing room decor costs, at a glance
| Item | What to buy | A price we found |
|---|---|---|
| Cushion covers | Kantha or plain cotton, in two colours | Kantha cushion cover: under ৳600 (2026) |
| Floor seating | A shatranji or Shital Pati with big cushions | Shatranji in Dhaka: from ৳800 (2023) |
| Table lamp | Cane, jute or ceramic base, warm bulb | Aarong lamps: ৳633–৳4,367 (2026) |
| One wall piece | Kantha wall mat, canvas print or an original | Kantha wall mat: ৳700–৳2,200 (2026); canvas print: ৳800–৳5,000 (2026) |
| Plants | Snake plant, money plant, rubber plant | ৳100–৳500 at Dhaka nurseries (2019) |
| Feature wall | Wallpaper on one dry wall | ৳80–৳150 per sq ft, plus ৳30–৳80 to fit (2026) |
| Sofa | Second-hand, from a Dhaka furniture market | ৳16,000–৳35,000 (2023) |
The prices come from dated press reports and shop pages, so expect some drift. The sections below explain each one.
How do you lay out a drawing room?
Measure first, then place the carpet, then the sofa. Before buying anything, Gulshan Nasrin measures how much wall the sofa, side table and chairs will take together, and marks the layout on the floor with tape or paper cut-outs. Her other rules:
- A sofa about two-thirds the length of the room. In a drawing-dining room, let walking space win over the rule.
- Carpet first. The front legs of the sofa and chairs sit on it, with bare floor showing around the edges.
- The sofa a few inches off the wall, for air and so you can reach the windows and curtains.
- Furniture that moves. Modular sofas or light chairs suit families who often have more guests than seats.
- Balance. Don't push everything to one side. Set something light opposite something heavy.
A small drawing room, about 10 by 12 feet
Put a three-seater of about 6 to 7 feet on the longer wall, facing the TV or the window, on a carpet of about 5 by 7 feet. Add one light chair or two cane moras instead of a full set, and a small centre table. Keep the path from the door clear.
For extra seats, lay a Shital Pati or shatranji on the floor with a few large cushions. Mrinal Saha suggested this in Prothom Alo in 2024 for small sitting rooms, and advised keeping a sofa or chair for older family members, who can't sit on the floor.
A drawing-dining room
Many flats have one long room with the dining table at one end. Mark the two halves: a carpet under the seating only, and a pendant light over the table. Turn the sofa's back to the dining side so it works as a low divider, and leave a clear walkway behind it so nobody squeezes past a seated guest. Use the same two or three colours in both halves so it reads as one room.
A bigger drawing room
With room to spare, float the sofa off the wall on a larger carpet of about 6 by 9 feet, and set two chairs facing it. Decide what the room is for. If you host often, put seats face to face. If you read, give the best light to one comfortable chair.
What should go on the drawing room wall?
One strong piece on the wall that faces the door or sits behind the sofa, hung at the right height. Leave the other walls quieter. In order of what we'd pick:
- A hand-painted original or calligraphy. It's one of a kind, unlike a printed canvas, and for many families calligraphy is the main wall. Our painting price guide and Islamic calligraphy wall art guide cover price and placement.
- A kantha wall hanging. Soft, deshi and light enough for a rented flat. Read about Nakshi Kantha first.
- A terracotta mural, if you own the flat. Custom murals cost ৳1,500 to ৳4,000 per square foot in 2021, The Business Standard put it.
- One feature wall of wallpaper, behind the sofa or the TV. The Daily Star gave ৳80 to ৳150 per square foot for budget wallpaper in June 2026, plus ৳30 to ৳80 to fit it. Wallpaper doesn't fix damp, so treat a damp wall first.
- Skip a scatter of small frames at different heights, and printed canvas sets sold by the panel. They look like a shop display, not a home.
How high to hang it: the centre about 57 to 60 inches (145 to 152 cm) from the floor, and the bottom edge 6 to 10 inches above the sofa back, with 8 inches a safe default. Make it about two-thirds the width of the sofa: on a 6-foot sofa, a piece about 48 inches wide, or a group of smaller frames hung as one block of that size. Those are the gallery rules in Fine Art America's 2026 guide.
Karunika, a painter in Dhaka, hand-paints originals in acrylic: Ocean Melody, a round canvas with real seashells set into its waves, and an Islamic calligraphy canvas with gold-foil detail.
One of a kind
Sold outFor a textured or 3D piece, these canvases are by another JADUZ maker:
More pieces are in wall art, and our textured ocean wall art guide explains how to care for a painting like this.
Which colours suit a drawing room?
If you want one answer: off-white or cream walls, with one deep colour in the textiles. Light walls make a small room look bigger, one of the low-cost rules in Prothom Alo's 2024 piece.
- Pick two or three colours and repeat each one at least twice, across cushions, curtains, a throw and the art, so the room looks planned.
- Let the wood lead. Teak or dark wooden furniture sits well with mustard, terracotta, indigo and bottle green. The Business Standard's 2022 piece on Bangladeshi interiors named teak, chapalish, chickrasi and gamari, and called a dark polish timeless.
- Keep the ceiling white. A coloured ceiling lowers a small room.
Which lights work best in a drawing room?
Two layers: the ceiling light for cleaning and big gatherings, and two lamps for the evening. A table lamp lights a room well for little money, Prothom Alo pointed out, and it changes the mood more than any showpiece. Use warm-white bulbs in the lamps.
The Business Standard's 2022 interiors piece suggested hurricane lamps, cane pendants or gamcha-patterned shades instead of crystal chandeliers. If you still want a chandelier, hang it over the centre table, not the walkway, and only where the ceiling is high enough that tall guests don't duck.
How do you decorate a drawing room on a low budget?
Spend on what guests see and touch first: cushions, a carpet or mat, one lamp and one wall piece. Everything else can wait.
A plan for about ৳5,000:
- Two kantha cushion covers, under ৳600 each at Karupally in Dhaka (Prothom Alo, January 2026).
- A kantha wall mat, ৳700 to ৳2,200 at Kumudini in the same report.
- A table lamp: Aarong's lamps started at ৳633 when we checked on 27 October 2026.
- A plant in a clay pot. Clay pieces start at about ৳50 at the stalls near Doel Chattar (The Daily Star Bangla, November 2023).
At the top of each range that comes to about ৳4,500. Then the free moves:
- Clear the showcase. Keep five things you love and put the rest away. Clay and terracotta look better there than costly showpieces, Prothom Alo suggested.
- Rearrange before you buy. Move the sofa to face the focal wall and see what's missing.
- Buy furniture second-hand. Prothom Alo counted more than 250 used-furniture shops in six Dhaka markets in October 2023, including Panthapath, Khilgaon Railgate and Mohammadpur Town Hall. Sofas sold for ৳16,000 to ৳35,000, usually half the new price or less. Check for woodworm and bargain.
- Or new, from a market. Mirpur Stadium Market has more than 70 furniture shops under the stadium, selling sofa sets and making pieces to your design (The Daily Star Bangla, November 2024).
Where to buy each of these, online and in Dhaka, is in our guide to home decor shops in Bangladesh.
Which deshi pieces make a drawing room feel Bangladeshi?
Pick two of these, not all six. A room with everything deshi starts to look like a craft fair.
- Nakshi Kantha. Cushion covers, a throw over the sofa, or a wall hanging. Our Nakshi Kantha price guide explains what each costs.
- Shital Pati. The cool cane mat UNESCO listed as intangible heritage in 2017. Use it as floor seating, or over the sofa in summer. See the Shital Pati price guide.
- Cane and bamboo. A pair of moras, or a full cane sofa set, which Prothom Alo suggested as a low-cost way to furnish a whole room.
- A jute rug. Hard-wearing and cool underfoot. Our jute rug price guide lists prices by size.
- Clay and terracotta on the showcase or a side table.
- Rickshaw art, in small doses: a tray, a lampshade or one framed panel. See our rickshaw art guide.
Two handmade pieces on JADUZ: a set of three hogla pata wall-hanging vases, and mirror canvas paintings:
One of a kindWhich drawing room ideas should you skip?
- A showcase full of gifts and showpieces. It's storage, not decor.
- Heavy dark curtains. Pale cotton or voile lets in light and makes the room look bigger.
- Plastic flowers. Fresh flowers or one living plant cost little more and look alive.
- Wallpaper on a damp wall. It traps moisture and the stains come through.
- A crystal chandelier on a low ceiling.
- Several small rugs. One carpet the right size looks bigger and neater.
- A matching furniture set bought in one go. Mix in one old or handmade piece so the room doesn't look like a showroom.
How do you protect drawing room decor in the monsoon?
Keep paintings, kantha and wood clean, dry and off damp walls, especially from June to September. Dhaka's average humidity stays above 80 percent through those months. The Canadian Conservation Institute puts the line for mould at 75 percent: at 70 percent visible mould can take about 100 days, at 90 percent about two.
- Hang art on inside walls. Avoid outside walls that sweat in the rains and walls shared with a bathroom.
- Air textiles. Dirty or starched cloth moulds first, so wash cushion covers and air the kantha on dry days.
- Keep pots away from paintings, so water and damp soil don't reach the canvas.
- Handle brass with clean, dry hands. Salt from your fingers turns corrosive in humid air. Wipe it with a soft, dry cloth.