Know How: The Ultimate Guide to Living Room Furniture
Whether you’ve just moved into a new home, are planning a major redesign, starting from scratch or updating your current living space, here’s our guide to living room furniture, all the pieces you should consider and where to put them. You can use this as your living room furniture buying guide, or simply as inspiration for when you tackle your next interiors project.
Thankfully, most modern living room furniture is designed to accommodate our growing needs, and many pieces will be dual purpose or multifunctional. Before going shopping, take a moment to consider what you will need from your furniture. Will your living room also double as a study when working from home, or a playroom for the kids, or even a guest room when people come to stay? Living room furniture with storage, comfortable sofa beds, and sideboards that can double as desks are all incredibly useful pieces that are multifunctional, giving you more for your money and saving you space.
Living room trends come and go so we advocate choosing classic furniture styles that will stand the test of time and updating the more affordable aspects of the room such as wall colours, carpets and rugs and all the soft furnishings as well as wall art and lighting. A comfortable, designer sofa is something you don’t want to compromise on since you and your family will be spending so much time here.
Added the keyword designer into the anchor text of the link :)
Here are the 7 key pieces that should be at the top of your living room furniture list:
1. Sofa
The sofa takes centre stage in most living rooms, so it’s vital that you do your research and find one that suits your style and space. Consider all the different types of sofa, from corner sofas, chaise, sofa beds and modular to compact and grand sizes. Remember sofas have different height backs and cushions fills, so if you require more or less support, it’s best to go into a showroom to test how they feel. We recommend starting with your sofa when buying living room furniture and then building out the living room from there; there’s nothing worse than finding your dream sofa only to find it won’t fit with all the other pieces in the room. Use our measuring guide to help make sure your sofa fits into your living room. Remember the size and proportions of your living room should dictate the size of your sofa; an enormous sofa in a tiny room will look unbalanced, just as a slim, compact sofa will look out of place in a grand, long room with high ceilings.
If you need some help deciding on the best sofa for your living room, take a look at our comprehensive Sofa Buying Guide. Remember that once you’ve chosen your sofa it’s important to protect it so that it’s there for all of life’s moments. We offer a Staingard protection policy with an at home cleaning service to help prevent permanent stains from scuffs and spills. If you’re interested in Staingard, you can find out more here.
2. Chairs
Next, you’ll want to consider any accompanying living room furniture such as chairs and footstools. They’re not quite as bulky as the sofa, but you will need to think about whether you want to add them to help create a reading corner or to face back into the room or towards the sofa, creating more of a social environment where people can talk to one another. We think a three-piece suite is a tad old-fashioned: have fun with furniture styles and pick your living room furniture for comfort and longevity over short-lived interior trends.
3. Footstools
Footstools make excellent accompanying pieces of furniture for your living room. Smaller than armchairs, they double as both a footrest and another spot for people to sit (especially little ones and furry friends). There are various styles of footstool for you to choose one; the best one for you will depend on what you intend to use it for most. For more advice on how to combine upholstered furniture, read our blog.
4. Coffee Tables
Next up, we consider some practical additions to any living room, such as the coffee table. You don’t want people resting drinks on the arms of your upholstered furniture or spilling hot drinks over cushions as they try to balance them on their lap. A coffee table is a practical and smart piece of living room furniture. If you have lots of DVDs and books, or blankets and toys, you might want to consider a solid style with storage. However, if you prefer more modern living room furniture and clean design, then a clear glass coffee table is stylish as well as practical.
5. Side Tables
Side tables are useful to sit alongside sofas, again for drinks and snacks, but also the TV remote, magazines, books and lamps. Lighting and lamps are essential for transforming the feel of a space. Bright white light can feel harsh, whereas a warmer yellow glow is softer and more calming on the senses. We recommend introducing two to three lamps in any room, and a side table is an ideal place to stand them and conceal the wire.
6. Storage
Like most family homes, we all have too much clutter and not enough places to store it. That’s where living room storage comes in. Use alcoves for bookcases, benches or blanket boxes to store toys and games, or even shoes, and as we said earlier, consider any multipurpose pieces of living room furniture that can double as storage, such as our Bertie sofa which comes with built-in hidden storage in the chaise unit.
7. Cushions & Throws
When it comes to the soft living room furnishing, rugs are hugely important for transforming the feel of a space. Not only will they help retain heat and hopefully help bring your heating costs down, but you can also use them to zone a room into different areas.
While not technically living room furniture, soft furnishings and accessories are the ideal pieces to update with the seasons and changing interior trends. Once you have the basic living room furniture covered, it’s time to get creative and start mixing and matching cushions and throws to soften the space, while bringing warmth, colour, pattern and texture; layering is key to nailing the use of living room accessories.
