Are you starting afresh, moving home or just want a complete change to your living space and don’t know where to start? Then we give you some tips and tricks on how to turn your living space into your happy place!
The first thing to consider when deciding on essential furniture pieces for your living room is the actual size of the room itself. There’s no point having your heart set on an 8ft sofa if the rest of your lounge is swamped by it.
What purpose does your living room have to serve? Is it a space for relaxing and watching the television or will it be used for dining and entertaining too?
Consider the ceiling height and the shape of the room – can it take extra tall storage units or are there some quirky nooks and crannies that need thinking about?
Ask yourself these questions –
- What is essential to my living space
- What can I realistically fit in
- Will the room and space ‘flow’ with the amount of furniture I want?
- Will the door openings be compromised?
- How much storage do I need?
- How do I want to use my living room?
When answering these questions, you’re half way there to making good choices when it comes to essential furniture pieces for your living room!
Only when you are clear about how you want to use your living room, will you know what essential pieces of furniture you’ll need.
We would say that the most important piece of furniture in any living room is seating. Whether that comes as individual arm chairs, sofas or both, it’s vital to make sure that you buy the most comfortable and size-right seating you can afford. Afterall, this is one of the rooms that will be used the most in your home.
Sofas can come in all different sizes and shapes these days. Corner sofas work well if there are 2 adjacent walls to push them up against. Individual armchairs work well in cosy corners.
What is going to be the focal point of your living room?
For many of us, the focal point of our living room is the TV. This said, TV’s come in all sizes and various mounts. Do you want to mount it on the wall, or having it sitting pride of place on a tv and storage unit? How much space will that take up?
Why is lighting so important when choosing key pieces of furniture for your living space?
If you want to use your living room to relax and read, or to do some crafts, then there’s no point having your favourite armchair shrouded in darkness!
Consider the lighting of your living room. How much light do you get from the ceiling lights and where do they highlight? You may want to think about bringing up-lighting into the mix, with thoughtful placement of floor lamps to give light where you need it.
Equally, table lamps can work well to highlight pretty trinkets, photographs and other treasured momentoes you like.
Are you planning to use your living room as a dining area too?
If this is the case, you’ll really need to think carefully about how much furniture you can realistically fit into your living space without compromising the flow and space.
You may want to think about an extendable dining table that only takes up space when you’re dining. Benches instead of dining chairs will also save that all important calming space. They can push under the table for minimum intrusion into the surrounding areas.
Does your furniture ‘balance’ with the room?
Again, this comes back to asking the critical questions before you buy any furniture for your living room. If you’re trying to furnish a small space, then heavy furniture will make the space appear and feel much smaller than it really is. A better choice would be an elegant, slimline sofa that will offer the same amount of seating area but won’t overwhelm the room space.
On the other hand, a very large living space will look empty if the sofa is small and insignificant and you only have minimalistic and sparse furniture.
These are the essential furniture pieces for living rooms, depending on how you want to use them:
- Seating – vitally important to make sure that your seating is congruent with the space you have available.
- Storage – very important because this is the main room in the house where you’ll undertake activities as well as relax. You’ll need some storage space to hide away clutter (and every home has clutter!)
- TV – most people have a television in their lounge, so consider how big you want it and its synergy with the available space. Would it be better mounted on the wall to save space, or would it look fantastic in the middle of a modular storage unit?
- Side tables and coffee tables – coffee tables are essential in any living room, as they provide valuable surface space for relaxed living, a great surface for kids to draw on or somewhere just to put your drink down!
- Floor and table lamps – these can make or break the ambience of any room, so they’re particularly important in a living room. They can be quite inobtrusive, but invaluable in supplying much needed light where you want it the most.
Summary
Before rushing out and buying a load of furniture for your new living space, just take a step back and answer the above questions. These answers will give you clarity on what you’re looking for and will lead to the look, feel and ambience you want – and you’ll be enjoying your living space for many, many years!
