Home Improvement Advice

The easiest and most inexpensive way to invigorate the design of your living room is to rearrange the furniture items you already own. Furniture placement can be a daunting task, no matter how big or small the room. If you are someone who always figured furniture placement would be better left to professional interior designers, fret no more. These tips will help you embrace the task of balancing your sofa with your coffee table or armchair, and allow you to create peace and harmony amongst all your furniture.

Location, location, location
A room must be balanced. Specifically, the furniture in every room should be placed in a way that is pleasing to the eye and easy to maneuver around. If all the heavy furniture pieces like sofas, armchairs, entertainment centers and bookshelves are loaded on one side of the room, a room can feel like a sinking ship.

On the other hand, if you spread your furniture around the room haphazardly, a room can feel cluttered even when it is relatively empty. Think about the size of your living room in relation to the amount of furniture you have.

You can anchor the room by situating a large entertainment center against one wall, and then arrange all seating comfortably around that anchor. Or, anchor your sofa against a wall, add a small side table or a coffee table in front for convenience, and violá! Your room is balanced.

Sofa Secrets
Using your sofa as an anchor, or as the focal point for your living room can be an effective furniture placement tool. However, modular sofas, or sofas with many components, can be too heavy an anchor, tipping the balance of the room with its bulkiness. A creative solution to this problem can be found in breaking up the pieces of the sofa.

Place the largest sofa piece against the longest wall of the room, then the smaller sections on the opposite side. If you have the smaller sections of the modular sofa face the long sofa at an angle, you will avoid that boring, boxy look that comes with having all furniture pieces pressed with their backs straight against a wall.

A fresh alternative to placing your sofa against the longest wall is to bring the sofa out, away from the wall. If you prefer this look and feel for your sofa placement, allow at least two and a half to three feet between the sofa and the wall for comfortable walking space. Less space is needed between chairs and a sofa, but always keep in mind walking patterns.

Go with the Flow
Imagine how you and your guests will maneuver in your living room with all the furniture in its proper place. For example, if there are two doors, you may want to place sofas and chairs in a manner that will allow passersby to walk behind or around the seating arrangement instead of through it.

If there is only one door to the room, don’t block the flow with a large coffee table right in the way of the sofa. Make sure you allow easy access directly to the sofa and chairs from the door, allowing for some space around the seating area as well.

Larger living rooms can be designed so that they function effectively as two areas. For example, have one social, entertainment center seating arrangement in one section, and a quieter study arrangement in another. Tall side tables can be placed behind a sofa with decorative vases and pictures on top, as long as there is still walking space behind the couch.

When deciding on how to arrange your living room furniture, listen to your instincts. Wait to decorate the walls for a few days or even a week once you have decided on where you are going to put each piece of furniture, to give yourself a chance to get used to the new placement. Live in the space for a bit, and assess how you feel. If something doesn’t feel right, you can always move it, and use these tips to help you bring your living room back into balance.

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Is your living room a place for show, only used when you’re entertaining? Living rooms, as their name suggests, should not only reflect who you are to the outside world, but they should also be lived in. Here are some suggestions for making your living room warm and inviting for guests as well as functional and comfortable for family members.

If your living room is large, divide it into smaller areas through the positioning of furniture. You want the “conversation pit” to be cozy — a couch and loveseat and a couple of chairs around a large cocktail table will seat many people, yet they’ll all be able to hear what the others are saying. A great place for family meetings as well as for entertaining. Make sure all seats are within reach of a table — someplace to set down those drinks and chips!

Face the couch to an architectural focal point, such as a fireplace or a large window that looks out to your garden or the city lights. If you don’t have an architectural element to work with, create one by hanging large pictures or a mural on a wall. This allows people to admire the art and it’s safer than hanging anything heavy right above the seating (especially in areas prone to earthquakes!). Hang cloth wall hangings or small pictures on the wall behind the couch. Don’t, however, hang a mirror where people will see their reflection all the time. Not everyone is thrilled by his or her image.

If you divide your living room in two or three seating and/or dining areas, use rugs to define the conversation grouping, another under the dining table, and another to set off a place to exhibit the Buddha you brought back from Thailand or a wall of bookcases that not only hold your books but also display your collection of antique toys or Bennington pottery. Area rugs work well over waxed hardwood floors or neutral, wall-to-wall Berber-style carpeting.

A decorative room divider, such as Japanese shoji screens, can be used to separate a large room into a living room and a TV room. In a smaller place, face the couch to a wall unit that holds the television — it’s sure to become a favorite gathering spot for the family.

The days of covering the “good” living room furniture with plastic are over! Leather or the new microfiber fabrics are easy to clean, look great, and can survive guests, kids, and pets. If the furniture is in neutral colors, add colorful decorative pillows. Remember to keep a few throw blankets around to stay cozy on cool nights.

If your living room walls are painted in light neutral shades, you’ll be able to change the furniture and decorative touches easily. Other ways to change the look of your living room are by adding tall plants or a silk tree, a permanent flower arrangement in a basket or tall vase, or even a fountain and small pond in a large enough space.

Don’t forget about lighting! Floor lamps, especially in dark corners, can brighten large areas, while table lamps can provide good light for your favorite reading/knitting chair. An arrangement of candles on the mantelpiece or a table adds ambiance to your living room. Now go ahead, live in your living room!

If you are lucky enough to have a bar in or near your kitchen, then you know what a useful place a bar can be. Those who live without a bar don’t know the way that it adds space and seating options and the way it allows families to gather for short or long times in a setting more informal than at the dining room table. My kitchen bar has become the gathering place for my children both before and after school. We use that spot so much that my wife and I knew we needed to be intentional about choosing the right bar furniture.

As an interior designer, I am always giving people advice about creating their ideal homes. The longer I have been in the business, the more I have learned that there are certain areas of the home that need to be focused on more. A bar nook is one of those places that I always encourage people to spend a little more time, energy and money being intentional about. I say this because of the frequency with which most people use their bar nooks. My advice to people is that they will use their bar nooks a lot more if they take time to do it well. I share with them that a bar nook can become one of the biggest gathering places for families. Bar furniture is a necessary step to creating this great environment.

Obviously, you want your bar furniture to match the style and feel of the rest of your kitchen and dining area, so don’t be too quick to rush off into plans that will make your bar nook stand out too much. My advice to people is always that they should have a unique element or two to their bar furniture without making them entirely other than the decor of the surrounding area. You want it to stand out and blend in at the same time.

One of the key features of any bar furniture should be comfort. No one will stay in an area long if it is not comfortable, so think about longevity and comfort when you are looking for the perfect bar furniture. Grab a few magazines and get ideas from other peoples’ homes. See what works and what looks like too much in the bar nook area. Magazines are one of the best sources of creativity, so use this resource and slowly gather ideas for your bar furniture. If you have an interior designer working with you, he or she will be able to really help you make this space effective as well.