Please Don't Put Your Couch There! 5 Mistakes We All Make Arranging Living Room Furniture
| Oct 23, 2018
From family movie night to book club meetings, the living room is a major social hub in your home—but did you know that furniture placement can make or break these gatherings?
The placement of your furniture can seriously affect the comfort and functionality of your living room, according to Myquillyn Smith, aka "The Nester," and author of “The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful.”
"Every piece of furniture you own might not have a perfect spot in your house, but it does have a best spot," she says.
HarperCollins
In her new book, "Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff," Smith gives the inside scoop on a whole assortment of home decor topics—including common furniture mistakes she sees when homeowners are arranging their living rooms. Keep these errors in mind in order to avoid creating a living room that's not, well, livable.
1. Overlooking your focal wall
Cozy Minimalist Home
The secret of a functional living room? A focal wall, which is the first place the eye comes to rest.
According to Smith, not every living room has a built-in focal wall, but if your room does have one, you don't want to make the mistake of passing it up.
"The goal is to set up your room so that the majority of the seating is facing or angled toward the focal wall," she says.
You can use a fireplace, a picture window, or a mounted TV as your focal wall. When picking your wall, you also have to consider how it will go with your couch (more on that next).
2. Trying to squeeze in too much furniture
Making the most out of your space can be overwhelming, especially if your living room is cluttered with furniture.
To make things easier, focus the room around your couch.
"The sofa is usually the biggest, most important piece in the room," notes Smith. "So it gets priority."
When arranging your furniture, take a good look around your living room and push everything (yes, everything!) out of the way, except for your sofa. Next, move the sofa into each space that it will fit, until you find the spot that works best for you.
As you reintroduce your smaller pieces, notice how they work in relation to your sofa.
"Everything in your room has a relationship to everything else around it," she adds.
3. Pushing your couch up against the wall
Cozy Minimalist Home
This might come as a surprise, but a big mistake Smith often sees is the sofa (and other seating) pressed up against the wall.
"About the only time a sofa looks right when it’s placed against the wall is when it’s a corner sectional and it’s in a corner," she says.
Instead, pull your sofa out from the wall at least 12 inches. This creates white space and makes the room feel bigger, instead of creating a large section of dead space in the middle of the room.
4. Keeping everything, even if it doesn't serve a purpose
Cozy Minimalist Home
Just because you've had a piece of furniture for years doesn't mean it belongs in your living room.
"Fight the urge to include items just because they’ve always been there," Smith says.
Smith recommends organizing the pieces that are not used for for seating into two categories: surfaces and storage. Surfaces include coffee tables, side tables, and desks; Smith identifies storage items as armoires, cabinets, trunks, and dressers.
To free up space, ask yourself which surfaces and storage are truly needed in the room. Is your favorite coffee table vital for remote control storage and entertaining guests? Keep it. Is the table in the corner just sitting there collecting dust? Donate it.
5. Arranging your furniture around pieces you don't really use
Cozy Minimalist Home
Don't make the mistake of arranging your living room around furniture you don't use.
Your essential seating gets first dibs. Smith classifies these essentials as "any object on which someone sets their tush every day," so be sure to arrange your favorite chairs, love seats, and small couches before anything else.
However, you don't have to wipe the space of nonessential seating—that extra furniture can still serve a purpose.
"While you might not use your secondary seating every day, keep it around for when friends and family visit," she recommends.
No comments:
Post a Comment