Choosing the Right Living Room Furniture

The main furniture components that make up your living room are sofas and chairs, coffee tables, end tables and console tables. A good combination of these pieces should leave you with a well put together living room that is both livable and aesthetically pleasing. Overdo it and pick pieces of furniture that are too large for your room or try to cram too many pieces into your space, and you’ll quickly ruin your living room. Below, I’ll go piece-by-piece and give you a few tips to picking the right furniture for your living room.

Seating is the most important aspect to most living rooms. A sofa or couch is probably the most expensive and most used piece of furniture you’ll purchase, so it’s wise to plan ahead and choose a sofa that fits the size of your living room and pick a color or pattern that will work with a variety of tones and hues. The biggest mistake often made here isn’t with colors, however, it’s with sizes and sometimes shapes. You can only do so much with the space your living room provides. If you can’t fit a big sectional comfortably, then it’s probably better to go with a smaller sofa and see if a chair or two will fit more comfortably. Remember, you’re going to want room for end tables and a decent sized coffee table, so stuffing all the seating you can into your living room isn’t the way to go.

While the sofa is probably the most important part of your living room, the coffee table usually remains the centerpiece and focal point of it. For one, the coffee table is normally situated towards the center of the room, and of course, once you’re seated, the coffee table becomes the main piece of furniture in your line of sight (no, the TV doesn’t count as a piece of furniture). Choosing the right coffee table is about both size and material. Most coffee tables are rectangular in shape, and this works for most rooms, but if an oval, circle, or square table would work better for you, they’re out there, but may be harder to find. There are a variety of woods and finishes available, and even glass remains a popular option. The things to look at here are what other wood finishes you have in the room and if the room gets a lot of natural light or not. If you have a lot of furniture with dark finishes, you might want to stick with a similar finish for your coffee table, should you choose wood.