Carve out a dining nook with a round table that doesn't have sharp corners.Furniture Arrangement Ideas and More for Small Living Rooms Make your small living room seem larger with these furniture arranging ideas and smart decorating tricks. Everything In This Slideshow Choose Visually Lightweight Furniture Pay attention to the visual weight of furniture, not just its actual size. Light-color furniture or pieces with legs appear lighter than dark or boxy upholstered pieces. In this small living area, the leggy chair doesn't obstruct views of the passage or the floor, so the space feels more open. The metal and glass coffee table also consumes very little visual space. Plan your perfect furniture arrangement! Shop our favorite living room furniture now! Need ideas to maximize a small living room? See the secrets to the perfect living room furniture arrangement. Use Neutral Color Throughout Using a neutral palette throughout a small living room is one of the best ways to push back the walls.
The eye can roam freely through a neutral palette, so the space feels more expansive. Small Room Color Ideas Big Ideas for Small Spaces A small living room can feel even smaller when it shares space with a home's dining area. See how this tiny living room-dining room combo overcame its diminutive proportions with a few smart ideas. Stylish Small Living Room Decor A room's space always includes more than just its horizontal dimensions. Invite the eye to move above and below eye level. In this living room, emphasis on the vertical comes by way of floor-to-ceiling draperies that hang just below the ceiling beams. Shop window treatments now! Use Small Scale Furniture Choose furniture in a scale appropriate for the room and for the people who will use it. The sleek design and small scale of a Saarinen Tulip chair suits a small living room, as does the Parsons table. The armless chair is heftier, but its lines and shape won't make a small room feel crowded.
More tips for choosing small-space furniture. Play Up the Light Take advantage of all available light to help enlarge the space. Use white or pale colors, which increase the brightness of a room by reflecting light. Keep window treatments simple and avoid blocking the windows with heavy layers of fabric. Add Seating with a Window Seat Turn a window niche into a mini living area with a window seat. Choose slender, leggy furniture for small spaces because they take up less visual space. The eye is fooled into thinking the space is larger because you can see under and through these pieces of furniture. Add storage without eating up floor space by building shelves into the space between wall studs. Enlarge Space with White A small living room escapes feeling constrained thanks to white walls, pale floors, and white upholstery. The elements of the room are united by white, giving the space a cohesive feel. Carve Out a Corner In an open floor plan, stake out a section for the living room with two love seats, or one love seat and two chairs, a large coffee table, and a rug.
In this space, the seating placement distinguishing a living space from the dining area beyond. Filling the floor space with a coffee table may seem counterintuitive, but using a few large pieces in a small space actually simplifies the room. Shop our favorite decor finds now! Use an Ottoman for a Coffee Table A large upholstered ottoman doubles as a coffee table when you add trays to provide a flat surface for drink glasses or a vase of flowers. Scale Furniture to the Space In a small living room, a narrow bench serves as a convenient coffee table without taking up much space. Give a small space grand character and maximum function with a bank of cabinets. This unit incorporates concealed storage with open cubbies, which help the piece feel lighter in the room. Create Clear Traffic Paths Arrange furniture to direct traffic around the conversation core rather than through it. In this small living room, the sofa marks the beginning of the seating space.
Traffic coming in from the door is directed to go on either side of the sofa, rather than directly through the conversation area. Keep Colors Light and Soft Pastel furnishings, white walls, and a light neutral area rug make this living room feel lighter and brighter and therefore larger. The chair offers comfortable seating, but exposed legs, they consume less visual space than a club chair would. Chairs to accent your space -- shop now! Stylish Solutions for Awkward Spaces Eric Church Highway To Home Lana Reclining Club Chair Leather Heated Reclining Massage Chair with Ottoman Winnols Leathersoft Recliner and Ottoman III Leather Heated Massage Recliner with Ottoman Winnols Microfiber Recliner and Ottoman Faith Leather Recliner and Ottoman Palermo Torino Zerostrain Recliner Leather Recliner and Ottoman II Medford Recliner & Ottoman Set (Set of 2)1 × CB2’s Tayabas Cane Side Chair ($499) with black cushion ($50). Buy Photo For designer Betsy Stires, accent chairs are a decorating treat.
They’re mobile pieces, easy to move from room to room, and one of the quickest ways to spruce up a dull space and express personal style. “If a room were an outfit, the accent chairs would be the jewelry” said Stires, who owns an interior design firm in Old Town Alexandria called Frog Hill Designs. It pops from the rest of the palette but also ties it all together.” Traditionally, accent chairs are intended to be used only when extra seating becomes necessary, so they tend to be equal parts functional and decorative. That makes them a fun piece to shop for and a great way experiment with color and texture. But they can also have deceptively large footprints, particularly those that rock or recline. In apartments and condos where space is precious, finding one that’s stylish, comfortable and lean can feel impossible. “Accent chairs add so much flavor and character to a room, sometimes you only need one to do something big,” Stires said. “It can make a statement.” Stires, 52, recently moved from a large home in Great Falls to a 2,300-square-foot Alexandria apartment.
Her new home is still large for an apartment, so the downsizing wasn’t terribly dramatic, but accent chairs and poufs have been vital for when guests come over, she said. “If you only have room for one big upholstered piece, you have to get creative.” The first step to shopping for accent chairs is determining your spatial constraints. Lisa Scroggins, the retail market manager of Room & Board on 14th Street NW, said those in small spaces should look for chairs that fall between 25 to 32 inches wide. And although the market is flooded with vastly oversized armchairs, the standard seat depth hovers around a generous 20 to 22 inches. The next step is to figure out what purpose the chair will serve. Is it purely a statement piece that will be pulled out twice a year for parties? Or will friends use it every week when they come over to watch the game? More recreational chairs should be durable, so shop for fabrics such as leather and canvas. Chairs destined for life in the hallway can be more artsy;
think of them like practical sculptures you can sit on when you get in a pinch. Erin Raines, a designer in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, said that living-room seating arrangement is a predicament for the majority of her clients at Space 3 Interiors. “Needless to say, I’ve done a lot of research on small accent chairs.” She has a few go-to chairs for problem-solving. West Elm’s Button Slipper Chair ($399) measures 25 inches wide and straddles vintage and modern design, “so it works with a variety of decor styles,” she said. Room and Board’s Celeste Swivel Chair ($749) is a client favorite, and because it’s low to the ground, it can visually open or close a seating area depending on which direction it faces. Ikea’s Poang chair ($69-$149) is far and away the “household staple,” she said, because it’s affordable, comfortable and lightweight. Raines suggests a money-saving design hack: ordering custom slipcovers from Bemz, an online shop that sells covers specifically measured to fit Ikea products.
“It’s the easiest way to give your furniture an upgrade,” she said. Comfort is often the No. 1 priority when young people shop for seating, which explains why L-shaped couches and big, cozy recliners are post-college staples. But they’re not practical choices for those renting less than 1,000 square feet. To that end, many manufacturers and retailers offer furniture lines geared toward city-dwellers. Even La-Z-Boy loyalists have hope. Shortly after the recession, the Michigan-based company updated its catalogue to offer sleeker pieces for urbanites. The Midtown Recliner ($849) measures just 33 inches wide and 21 inches deep, and trades the traditional chair’s pillow-like silhouette for clean, straight lines. And for those willing to splurge, higher-end retailers such as Design Within Reach and Tho. Moser make slender, modern lounge seating (such as Thos. Moser’s Ellipse chair, $2,475, and ottoman, $675, in cherry). Of course, creative seating solutions don’t have to come in the form of accent chairs.