This is your new home decor bible – minus half of the commandments, as sometimes less is more – that will help you ask yourself questions about your furniture to give you the best possible layout for your living space.
1. Is it comfortable – is it practical?
There’s no point rearranging your room or having it look good from afar, then sitting down and nearly breaking your neck to either see the tv or when having a conversation.
Always make sure that when placing new or existing furniture in your home that it remains functional. This may take some attempts but don’t just move it and look at it – move it and do the things you’d normally try and do. It’s like going to a bed store and lying down on the bed rigidly with your clothes and shoes on in a completely unnatural sleeping position.
This is your home – lounge across something, take your shoes off, and actually interact with your furniture in how you’d expect to use it daily. Are you able to easily reach a coffee table to place your mug down, and can you see the TV without doing yourself an injury?
2. Free-flowing traffic
Second, to comfort is another practical element of your furniture. Yes, you can reach the coffee table now, but can you access other parts of your living space? Or have you just barricaded an area entirely?
Make sure furniture allows for free flow throughout your home. There’s nothing worse than having to creep around furniture unnaturally or stoop to avoid near miss accidents. Your furniture needs to work around you, so don’t place it in areas of a busy thoroughfare or in a way in which you can’t access the whole part of your furniture, such as a bookcase which only has certain shelves accessible.
3. Where’s the focal point?
Focal points vary from person to person – but make sure you’re including one in your living space. If it’s a fireplace make sure you arrange some furniture around it such as some chairs to promote conversation. Keep in mind the first commandment when doing so.
You might have some artwork or a sculpture you wish to focus on. If this is the case make sure that people are drawn to it by placing it within the same traffic flow through a doorway. It becomes less focal if it’s on a wall around the corner, yet it will draw attention if people approach it on the entrance, OR, can sit down and view it at a seated position.
4. Is something floating?
We’re naturally drawn to push our furniture up against walls, but push against this urge and leave a piece or two of your furniture floating.
Floating furniture can encourage commandment number two as well as create your own focal point in commandment three. A small table if left floating could be used to draw attention to all aspects of your room, as well as offer different perspectives if approached from different angles.
Having at least one piece floating will open up and lift your room entirely and is a strong furniture placement commandment to abide by.
5. Does it assault the senses?
Imbalanced pieces of furniture can be visually unappealing and assault our senses for all the wrong reasons. Instead of evoking pleasure as a focal point does, they leave us feeling uneasy and if you’re anything like me I feel physically on edge – a kind of anxiety from sitting in a room with lopsided furniture. It’s anything but peaceful.
You might want your living space to be energetic and vibrant rather than peaceful, but you won’t create that with furniture that isn’t correctly balanced.
Make sure when placing furniture next to one another one item doesn’t dwarf the other, and you have variety between your groupings. Balance can also come from a good mixture of textures and shapes. If your living space is quite busy with chunky carpets and plush sofas, consider making some statement pieces sleek and square to combat falling into a marshmallow effect.
The opposite can be said for more clinical living spaces. Add some curves and some texture through plants to break up clean lines.
Stick to the commandments and you’ll create a beautiful living space suited to you. Don’t forget to change things up regularly, and when you feel your living space is in a slump, consider injecting some new pieces into it. Check out furniture company reviews like these Sofology ones at Reviews.co.uk to avoid breaking the furniture commandments, and find a company that works for you.
