Skip to main content Skip to accessibility help Free Click & Collectfrom our shops on orders £30 and over Free standard deliveryon all orders over £50 Never knowingly undersoldsince 1925 Fast, free UK standard delivery Delivery in as little as 3 working days depending on your postcode Shop Living Room Furniture with 3-day delivery Dressing tables & Wardrobes CD & DVD storage A little colour or a bold print – finish your look with these soft furnishings Living & dining buying guide Our living and dining room furniture buyingguide offers advice Measuring up for furniture Discover how to measure up for new furniture soyou can work with the space you haveFree Click & Collectfrom our shops on orders £30 and over Shop Sofas with 3-day delivery Choose the right sofa for you Find something petite or a larger sofa for the whole family Leather or a printed fabric? We've got a variety of styles We've textiles from easy-maintenance Aquaclean through to Harlequin and Osborne & Little fabrics
Order free fabric swatches Order Aquaclean fabric swatches Sofas & armchairs buying guide We take you through styles and shapes so you can choose yournew favourite seat Make sure your furniture will fit into your home with thehelp of our guide Enjoy added peace of mind with our Lighting and Furniture guarantees We're here to help furnish and decorate your home, from custom-made upholstery to a full home design serviceRead our buying guides for information on home furnishings and advice on what to consider before you buy Be inspired: we've created seasonal home design stories to give your home a cultivated and cohesive lookBedroom BitsEmma S BedroomSpare BedroomGuest BedroomMaster BedroomContemporary Duvet CoversContemporary BedroomsContemporary ArtBedroom MoodboardForwardJohn Lewis Indah Duvet set. I actually own this bedding, and it's so lovely for my #sleepsanctuary! Traditional meets modern, and the yellow pairs really well with dark wood accents.
Eater CoverRange CuratedDinning TableDining SpaceDining Table With Bench And ChairsKitchen Table BenchBench TableIona TableQuin CabinetForwardBring the family together with this tasty collection. The elegant Parson dining chairs have removable seat covers, perfect for the messy eater. Cover up your clutter with Quin cabinet, generously sized for all your bits and bob. The Iona table will give your dining space character. The bench is generously sized too, so you can always squeeze a few more in. All part of our Living etc collection.When relationship therapists compile lists of things couples argue about, the same subjects always feature: sex, money, in-laws, children. But in my house, another issue reduces my husband James and I to insults slammed doors and simmering resentment: interior design. Once the decision over whether the kitchen should have tiled or wooden floors tended to be one partner’s (usually the woman’s) domain. Today, however, our metrosexualised husbands’ views on Elephant’s Breath versus Lulworth Blue can lead meltdowns.
For my husband and I, every room in our Victorian house in south-west London is a testament to our inability to agree. Every decorating decision has involved an unsatisfactory compromise and hundreds of wasted pounds. “What possessed you to choose this tat?” howls James, wielding my new lamp with an Ikat shade, while I fantasise about him going away on a long work trip so I can donate his ugly brown beanbag (which no one ever sits on) to charity. Which explains why I find myself sitting in the middle of a giant, white, plastic head on the second floor of John Lewis, Oxford Street, jabbing at a screen displaying non-stop images of patterns, objects, textures and textiles. I’m in the Head Of Design, a 2.7-metre-tall model of a human head, in which my “design taste” will supposedly be gauged after this free, three-minute intuitive “test”, apparently the first of its kind in the world. "A lot of thought goes into choosing items for the home so we want to make sure customers end up with designs that they will be happy with for years to come,” explains Pip Prinsloo John Lewis’s head of design.
The word “test” makes me nervous – will some interiors guru in a back-room be laughing at me for choosing an image of bowls shaped like fish over minimalist bone china? Still, I continue to choose, until suddenly… it’s all over and the computer has decreed that my preferred style is “Fusion”, styles influenced by Morocco, India and China. It emails me a “moodboard”, involving a lot of kilims and beaten brass lamps, to inspire me further. It’s a useful prescription, but not in the way intended. I’ve always had a fondness for ethnic knick-knacks, but seeing this moodboard makes me finally realise I’m no longer on my gap year and my tastes need to mature. Studying, the other “moods” – “Relaxed Country” and “Elegant Townhouse” to name two, I realise that the themes I’d prefer to pursue are “Scandi” (blonde wood) in our tip of a downstairs play area, with a more “Boutique Hotel” feel of rich colours and dramatic shapes in our currently shambolic living room.
The great news is that – after his own consultation – James agrees. Next up as peace-broker is Cimagine, John Lewis’s newly launched “augmented reality” app, which allows you to superimpose furniture images on a physical space, to see how they’d look there. “Look,” exclaims John Vary, the company’s innovation manager, grabbing an iPad, as a dining room chair from the catalogue is suddenly transported onto the shop floor in front of us. “It’s so much easier to see if it’s right for you, when you see it in context.”if I’d had Cimagine I’d never have bought that ottoman that swamps our living room. As yet, the app can only be used in-store in Cambridge. However, soon a new one will be available to use at home. Already the Ikea app allows this, though currently only with selected pieces of furniture. Imagine the miserable trips around the M25 that could have been avoided if I’d been able to have a virtual inspection of the Oppland drawers in our bedroom.
Plus, as Debbie Goodge, a John Lewis home design adviser, points out: “Men love technology; it’s great to use it to convince them.” Technology, however, can only take you so far. To be truly reconciled, James and I need Debbie to come to our house and give us a “consultation”, for just £200 redeemable against purchases (she or her colleagues also give in-store consultations for free) – much cheaper than hiring a traditional interior designer. “Helping couples who disagree is a major part of my work,” Debbie tells me, smiling. “I’ve often had to send a husband to the café until he’s calmed down. Often the row is about budget, with him shouting: 'How much?’ It’s amazing how the eyes of a third party can help. I’ll take both tastes into account and often suggest something neither of you would have thought of.” Debbie visits for an hour, and a week later produces brilliant interiors advice, much of which doesn’t involve buying anything, but tweaking existing items – putting LED light strips on our bookcases, for example, and replacing our curtain pole with a longer one, so the windows are no longer concealed.
There are also two moodboards covered in swatches, pictures of furniture, which act on James like a charm. “Buy it,” he gasps, of a floor lamp. It’s all been much more fun than (I’d imagine) a trip to Relate. Now the problem is actually implementing all of these suggestions. Our house used to ring with cries of “James, we need to choose a new rug”. Now, there’s my constant nagging: “James! Take down that curtain pole,” and “Give me your credit card, so I can order that new sofa.” In the meantime, James’s beanbag may still just “disappear” to the dump. Upload pictures of your rooms to this app and it will draw up floor plans and add furniture a to bring the rooms to life. Thousands of dodgy paint decisions could have been avoided, with tthis app, which lets you zoom your phone around a room to try different shades from Dulux’s 1200-strong range. Uploads images of rooms from your home which are translated into 3D models. Then simulate what each room could look like when you add different furniture or colour schemes.