The Amount of Furniture in a Living Room | Chris Furniture, Inc
February 11, 2022
How many furnishings should be in your living room? The right number and mix depends on each room, of course. But you can use a few helpful tips as a guide to find your perfect balance. Keep the following guidelines in mind as you begin.
1. Start With a Blank Slate
The best way to begin planning living room design is usually to empty the room entirely. This allows you to start from scratch, seeing the room with as few obstacles and assumptions as possible. Starting over is especially important if you have already lived in this room for a long time and thinking outside the established box is not easy.
As you consider each piece of furniture — existing or new — it must earn its place. It must materially contribute to the goals of the room, the aesthetics, and the flow. You may assume, for example, that you need a television stand. But how will it affect the traffic flow? Will you use the entire piece of furniture? Could a smaller stand or wall-mounted TV do the same job? Or can the stand serve more than one purpose?
2. Avoid Too Much Minimalism
While you do not want to squeeze in every piece of furniture possible, you also do not want to make it too empty. A single sofa and coffee table in a living room certainly does create a clean, uncluttered look. But it is not very practical, leaving no comfortable amount of seating for more than one guest. It may also make the room feel even emptier than if you had no furniture at all and may actually be unwelcoming.
3. Give Furniture Space to Breathe
Did you know some useful measurements determined by interior design pros can help you? Professional designers have studied the traffic flow patterns, usage styles, and comfort levels of many of their own customers to figure out what people tend to prefer.
As you learn more about space requirements around pieces of furniture, you will get a sense of how many pieces can fit in your own room. You may be able to adjust for the size of furniture, such as by using larger upholstered chairs in a large space to fill it more comfortably.
4. Use a Rug as a Guide
Rugs can be useful guides for furniture placement. A rug serves as a sort of zone boundary for a living room. In general, at least the front feet of a sofa should rest on the rug. It should then extend around to allow at least the front feet — although preferably all — of accompanying chairs and tables on the rug. If you have too much furniture for this simple guideline, you may want to remove some.
5. Consider Flexible Pieces
You do not need to overfill your living room if you choose pieces which can be used in different ways. You can often, for instance, switch the sides on which a chaise extends from a sofa. An ottoman, or poof, can serve as a footrest, a drinks table, or additional seating depending on the circumstances. And you can easily reconfigure a room by using light, mobile freestanding chairs and tables .
Ready to start applying these few tips to your own personal space? Start by touring the inventory at Chris Furniture, Inc, and speaking with our furniture experts. We offer furnishings in a wide array of styles, sizes, and uses for any home. Our team can help you assess your own living room to find the right balance. Stop by today to learn more. We look forward to assisting you with your furniture needs.
