living room furniture

There is no back of the room

In a bedroom or an office, furniture faces one way and the rest of it is against a wall permanently. A living room has people sitting at two or three points and walking between them, which means the side of a bookcase, the back of a console table and the top of a storage ottoman are all on display. Pieces designed to be pushed flat against plaster tend to look unfinished the moment the layout changes, and the layout will change.

• Check the back panel. Anything that might float away from a wall needs a back worth looking at.
• Sides get seen at seated height. A shelf edge at eye level from a sofa is examined far more closely than the front ever is.
• Tops are surfaces whether intended or not. A closed ottoman becomes a tray table within a week of arriving.
• Leave a route. Thirty inches of clear width between pieces is the point below which people start turning sideways.

The honest arithmetic of double duty

This is the room where one piece is asked to do two jobs, and it is worth being straight about the trade. A storage ottoman is a slightly worse seat than a stool and a slightly worse box than a chest. A sofa bed is a slightly worse sofa than a sofa and a slightly worse bed than a bed. In a room short of space, both trades are usually worth making, and anybody who tells you a piece does two jobs with no compromise is describing something that does not exist.

• Two jobs means two compromises. Small ones, but they are real and they are permanent.
• Decide which job is primary. Buy for the thing it does daily, not for the thing it does at Christmas.
• Storage under a seat is the best of them. It is the pairing that costs the least in either direction.

Buy for movability

Living rooms get rearranged more than any other room, usually two or three times before a layout settles and again whenever anything else changes. Pieces that only work in one position quietly prevent that, and pieces that are light, nesting or on casters keep the room adjustable for years.

• Light beats permanent. Nesting ottomans and a three tier shelf can be moved by one person on an afternoon.
• Modular survives a change. Two smaller pieces cover more layouts than one large one, which is the reasoning behind the folding options on the home office shelf too.
• Measure doorways once. A unit that will not go through the door of the next flat is a fixed cost you cannot recover.

Sorted by job, and where they overlap

Shelving, seating that stores and free standing surfaces make up the shelf, and several of these pieces appear on other room lists for good reason.

• Shelving. Units running from a three tier etagere to a nine tier tree, in tight and wide formats.
• Seating and storage together. Ottomans, some of which open, plus a sofa bed shared with the bedroom shelf.
• Surfaces. A console table and a TV stand are the pieces most likely to end up away from a wall.