How Much Furniture do I Need in my Living Room?
Before you purchase new furniture for your living room there are several facts you have to determine. First, how is your living room going to be used? Is it a formal room where guests will visit for a short time but you will not be serving refreshments? Is it a great room that is multi-functional? Do you plan to use your living room as the name implies – as a room to live in? This means you will use it for family gatherings, entertaining guests, watching television, etc. It is a room that will be well-used.
Now that you have defined its purpose there are two other considerations: space and budget. Today’s living rooms in moderately priced homes are not the giant rooms you find in the much older homes. To be kind to the designers who tried to maximize square footage, we can call them ‘intimate’ settings. If you feel less kindly, you can call them small. In listing how much furniture you need in your living room, you must make the distinction between want and need. You can want a $5,000 leather sofa but you need a place where three people can sit. Sometimes individuals are wealthy enough where they can combine the two. Most individuals and families are not in those financial latitudes.
The basic furniture to begin a standard living room is a sofa, one chair, one coffee table, one end table and one lamp. This gives you seating for four. The end table with the lamp and the coffee table give your guests a place to set their drinks or cups plus you can set snacks on the longer table. You can add to this grouping as you see fit. Get more information on defining living room spaces.
Depending on space, many individuals feel they need more furniture in their living rooms. The logical additions would be another chair and a second end table and lamp. This gives you comfortable seating for five. There are several free software programs on the Internet where you can put in the dimensions of your living room and add furniture to see how it will look in different arrangements.
Perhaps you have a great room that serves all purposes. In your household you have two adults and three children. You will be watching television in this room and the children will be using it to play games. This is where the floor plan will really help because you will need more furniture in your living room. You may opt for comfortable recliners for the adults. To keep clutter at a minimum you may consider an armoire for the television. There are also wall units that house the television, DVD player and music components in the middle with space-saving book cases on either end. It depends on your available space and how much money you have to spend.
If you like the idea of the wall unit, there are plenty of retail stores as well as on-line sites that sell them for a lesser amount if you put them together yourself.
Once you have your main pieces of furniture selected and in place you can begin to add accessories or other items if needed. The one thing you do want to avoid is too much furniture. This will make the room appear smaller and give you and your family a feeling of claustrophobia. You want your living room to be inviting and comfortable. If you have sufficient furniture and there are bare spaces, you can add greenery or potted plants where they can get good light. Old trunks make ideal places to store toys, magazines, board games and other things that may make the room seem cluttered. It can also serve as a table top for children to play on or a bench should you need additional seating. The same goes for ottomans. There are many styles and colors in ottomans that double and triple as storage spaces as well as extra seating. Some even have tops that reverse and have divided flat surfaces where children or guests can set their drinks or sodas without worrying about leaving rings on good wooden tables. It does get difficult if you have a large piece of furniture like a piano, read about how to place a piano in a living room.
Overall the secret to deciding if you need more furniture in your living room all boils down to space, function and budget.
