Does your oddly shaped living room have a poor furniture layout? You don’t have to hire an interior designer to help you work with the space you’ve got! Learn how to arrange furniture in a small or strangely shaped living room so you can maximize space, storage, and seating arrangements.
Furniture layout for asymmetrical living rooms
Furnish and decorate around a focal point.
It can be particularly tricky even to get started furnishing a living room with quirky qualities, like sloping ceilings, strange angles, or odd architectural features. Whether it is a gorgeous fireplace or a mounted television, you’ll have a place to start by picking a focal point.
Consider furnishing your room in segments.
Deciding how to arrange furniture in an awkward living room so that everything flows perfectly can be an overwhelming task. Instead of struggling with strange alcoves or other oddities, try thinking of your living room in pieces; perhaps you have a TV area, a reading nook, a small workspace, and so on. By dividing the space into sections with their own focal points, you can tackle them one by one!
Start with your biggest pieces of furniture, and work your way down.
This is a good rule of thumb when you’re planning any living room arrangement ideas, but particularly for an awkward space. Determine your longest wall and your biggest piece of furniture – those two usually go together. Once you’ve figured out where your largest piece of furniture will go, you’ll have a better idea of where your other components can fit.
Make consistent and cohesive decorating choices.
One thing that will quickly make an awkward living room feel even more awkward is filling it with a mix of furniture and décor that doesn’t mesh. For example, the loveseat tucked into that strangely placed cutout should look cohesive with your sectional in front of the TV, the windows should have matching curtains – you get the idea.
Furniture layout for a narrow living room
Avoid shoving furniture against your walls.
It’s a puzzle figuring out how to furnish a small living room, and even more so when it’s especially narrow. Many of us have a knee-jerk reaction to tuck everything against the wall, but this can make a packed living room feel, well, even tighter. Instead, pull everything slightly off the wall (as much as possible, that is), and you’ll downplay the narrowness (and awkwardness) of the room’s shape.
Take advantage of vertical space.
You might have room to put everything you own side-by-side in a long and narrow space, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should! By embracing pieces like tall bookshelves and stately armoires, you’ll bring the focus upward and downplay the tunnel-like quality of your living room.
Embrace curves and soft edges.
Filling your long, straight-edged living room with more long, straight-edged pieces certainly won’t help your case. Instead, consider choosing circular pieces, like a round coffee table or rug, to soften the entire room.
Furniture layout for an extra-wide room
Choose a big sofa, and float it away from the wall.
In a wide, spacious room, your living room furniture ideas can be big! If you have the space for a large, luxurious sofa, you might as well embrace it. A grand statement piece will serve as the focal point or anchor to the wide room, while a collection of smaller furnishings can quickly make the space look disjointed or cluttered.
Use area rugs to section the room.
You’ll likely want to break up a vast, boxy room into smaller areas, and area rugs are an easy way to accomplish this. You can create several different “zones” within a single room, like a TV area and a sitting/conversation area. Mix and match both round and rectangular area rugs to create visual interest while deemphasizing the space’s boxiness.
Don’t be afraid of color!
Avoid turning your expansive living room into a sea of white, beige, and gray. When you add a pop of color – whether it’s a glamorous red couch or a pair of fun yellow armchairs – you’ll instantly liven up the broad space and draw eyes to the pop of color.
Furniture layouts for a combination room
Stick to a color palette.
If you’re furnishing a multi-use space, like a living room and dining room combo, it’s essential to make sure everything looks harmonious and cohesive. By sticking to one general style and color scheme, you’ll ensure that the room looks like a unified and well thought out hybrid room, rather than a mismatched mash-up.
Create visual divisions with furnishings or décor.
There might not be walls between your living and eating, working, or even sleeping space, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create visual dividers between them. For example, facing a large couch away from your kitchen table, you delineate these separate spaces. Things like bookshelves, large area rugs, and floor lamps can all create borders between different sections.
Choose furniture that can serve two purposes.
Combining two rooms into one can feel cluttered quickly. That’s why strategically choosing furniture with a dual purpose can be so helpful, and minimize the amount of stuff you’re squeezing into the room. For example, storage ottomans can provide seating and a place to toss extra blankets, and a console table can become a place to eat by adding a few barstools.
When it comes to making sure your furniture will fit perfectly in an awkward living room, CORT Furniture Rental has quite a bit of experience. As one of the leading home furniture rental companies out there, we’ve delivered and set up thousands of furniture pieces to homes and apartments across the world.
Explore our furniture rental packages and let our experts help you figure out what furniture will fit your space — and then allow us to do the heavy lifting by getting it set up for you before you even arrive!
