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Furniture Design Dilemma Living Rooms

Living room design advice needed!

tristan_woodward

4 years ago

We own a Victorian town house and got our living room to a place we were happy with (well, nearly). I don't know exactly what it is but something doesn't look right and feels like something is missing. My initial thought is that we needed more 'height' in our fixtures and fittings. I had a couple of thoughts but before making any changes and buying more stuff I wanted to see what people with a better eye for it thought....

My ideas were:

- To increase height on the left (and bridge the gap between the sofa/table and picture ledge) I was going to buy a curved floor lamp and then put a plant on the table

- On the right I would replace the Peace Lilly with a taller table plant to increase the height and again bridge the gap to the picture ledge

- I wonder if the picture ledge should come down though not sure to what height given the varying size of pictures.....though I am loathe to do this and would only do as a last resort

I would be interested to hear what other people would do if this was theirs. Would you put pictures on the adjacent walls to the back wall, put plants in other places etc.

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Comments (5)

Jules Mc
4 years ago
More photos of the space would help people to see if the furniture arrangement could be improved upon. It bothers me that sofa isn't centralised on the pictute wall ( are your sofas the same size? ) and I also wonder how the sofa straddling the half wall looks from the back? So before you buy new plants /lamps etc it would be useful to show the whole space.
In the meantime I do think your instinct are right about the picture shelf being rather high but can see why you'd rather work with it. How about adding a second lower picture ledge, not necessarily the whole length of the wall? If you do end up keeping the sofa not centred you could place another lower ledge to enhance that arrangement. That said, even if you just keep the one ledge the biggest improvement I would suggest is breaking up the formality of the artwork. I think some more 'casual' type placement really helps. See some pics for inspiration below. Good luck, it's a lovely room.
tristan_woodward thanked Jules Mc
minnie101
4 years ago
Lovely room. I must admit I would have a lower ledge just over the sofa however I've tried mocking something up along your lines (apologies as I can't photoshop!).

i would put the footstool in front of the sofa with a throw over it so it has a function.

I like your light but wonder if it doesn't help with the height? I've also added some stronger pattern for cushions (and would probably have less).
tristan_woodward thanked minnie101
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tristan_woodward
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks both.

To Jules Mc: I attach some additional photos of the room layout for context. There is an adjoining room (playroom) where I took this picture. We deliberated the position of the sofas (they are different sizes) for ages and chose the current positioning as it was the most practical from which to watch telly. I tried to find ideas and inspiration on Houzz for how to deal with the corner and we settled on that coffee table. In an ideal world we would have bought a corner sofa but we already had the large sofa and didn’t want to replace. If you have any ideas on how we could improve the layout that would be great (I’m not attached to the coffee table but the sofas can’t be changed).

Regarding the picture ledge, I was actually inspired by the third picture down you posted (with the blue sofa) so it was on my mind to add another ledge below. The reason I fitted a long picture shelf was because the sofa wasn’t centre (I decided against two long ones as I didn’t have enough pictures to fill it). One option could be to simply cut the existing shelf in two and have two shelves (as in the picture) centralised over the sofa (though this won’t be in centre of wall which is a bit annoying). I too liked the messy layout from that picture, but alas my shelf is too shallow to overlap pictures so I spaced them instead.

To minnie101: I like the mocked up design, it does help to show what it would look like with taller lamps and plants. I might see if there is an interior design app to help me with this! The footstool is usually in front of the sofa but gets moved to one side when people sit on it. Which light are you talking about - the ceiling or table lamp?
arc3d
4 years ago
Hi Tristan,

I like that you said "...I don't know exactly what it is but something doesn't look right and feels like something is missing..."

The human brain loves balance and symmetry. That's why everything looks nice but somethings not quite there. If you give everything in your room a "visual" weight that will help a lot to see whats not allowing the room to look complete.

So just my view... The shelf goes way past the end of the sofa which makes the view look visually lop sided. The two tables either side of the sofa have a connection i.e. they are both side tables but they are not complementing each other because one is actually a coffee table pretending to be a side table :) Its too big for that corner and again adds to the lop sided-ness of the design. So... The sofa obviously cannot be moved to the centre because it will get tucked in behind the other one so I would say split the wall visually into two separate areas, one where the sofa is centred and the other to the right hand side, add symmetry by getting a smaller side table and matching lamp. In the other section you can add a tall plant that will compliment your wall colour or tall shelves to visually break it away from the first area. Leaving the floor space mostly empty in that corner will also make your room feel more spacious.

(apologies for the deformed side table)

If you want to do more you could lower the shelf and even paint that back wall a different shade to make it "pop", add a rug in front of the sofas, remove the bench seating and add a coffee table in the centre of the room.
tristan_woodward thanked arc3d
Sonia
4 years ago
I think it’s a lovely room that just needs accessorising more. I have a similar wall colour on my living room walls. What colour is yours? I would add art on the smaller left hand wall and on the right over the sofa too. It looks a little bare. More plants would also lift the scheme like in minnie101’s and arc3d’s mock ups. The picture shelf does look a bit high but as already suggested, another one below it would improve things. I think having a variety of different heights with accessories on the shelf looks good, as below. I’m also wondering if a rug would improve things, although I really like your carpet.
tristan_woodward thanked Sonia

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