Question: We are in a quandary as to how to decorate our living room with furniture. It is not a high-use area, but it is a visual introduction to our home. Ceilings in the entry and living room are 12 feet high. What do you recommend?

John Manzo
Granite Bay (Placer County)

 

Answer: Let's make this beautiful space both inviting and functional. Then it won't be just sitting there, pretty to look at, but unused.

What draws people into a room? It's a place that's comfortable to sit and have a conversation, or it's a quiet place to listen to music, read or contemplate the day in solitude. It should be somewhere you want to be.

Let's start with an area rug. Choose one that's 11 by 14 feet so it fills most of the room. It will draw the eye, and ultimately you, into the room by giving you a sense of destination. It also adds the first area of color to the room. (I'll review colors later.)

The living room doesn't have to be a no-man's land. Start with rug

 

Next, add a 6-foot-long sofa. Keep it relatively small to maintain a sense of intimacy. Behind the sofa, place a console table to provide a place for a pair of table lamps tall enough to give you good light for reading. Also set a small piece of sculpture or vase of flowers there. Opposite the sofa put a pair of club chairs. They shouldn't be too large, but comfortable enough to sit in for conversations. Between the sofa and club chairs put a rectangular coffee table with a top measuring 4 feet by 2 feet, 6 inches. It's large enough to put refreshments on, but not so large as to create a gulf between the two seating areas.

I've left your piano where you indicated it is. It's well situated, so someone can be playing it and people sitting in the room can enjoy the concert.

To create visual balance as well as to give people another reason for being there, I've added a game table opposite the piano. With four chairs placed around it, you now have an area where people can gather for entertainment. These chairs can be drawn to the sofa area when you need more seating.

Now let's make this living room even more inviting with color and texture.

Since you didn't indicate your preference for modern or traditional furniture, nor the style of the house, I'll give you design ideas that can go in any direction.

Use a tone of the strongest color in the rug for the largest piece of furniture, the sofa. If the rug has strong reds, the sofa could be a tone of that red. If the rug has large areas of beige, the sofa could be paler - camel, beige or taupe.

Green tones can take moss green to celadon for the furniture. Take another color in the rug as your guide for the club chairs. Again, use solid colors to keep it peaceful, though textures in the fabric will add interest when you're close to it.

The walls should be painted a warm, neutral color; perhaps something between toasty beige and cafe au lait if the rug is in the red tones, or if the rug is in the pale to deep green tones, choose a neutral color in those tones.

The wood in the furniture doesn't have to match.

The game table could be something with an interesting base, perhaps a concrete pillar or wooden barrel with a round glass top. The fabric on these chairs can complement the other fabrics.

The plants at the base of your existing pillar room divider should be tall enough to create a visual barrier, but not as tall as a hedge. Add a tall plant on the far end of the room that serves as a natural invitation as well as a visual transition to the nature outside the large windows.

A large mirror on the wall behind the club chairs and art on the wall behind the sofa as well as other open areas in the room will give the finishing touches to this room.

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