1. NOT MEASURING THE COUCH
One of the most obvious, but most common, mistakes we make when arranging a sofa is not taking the dimensions and scale of the sofa and the sitting room into account. Measurement is everything at this stage, choosing a sofa that is too small, will make the room feel unanchored and will not provide enough seating, but selecting a sofa that is too big will fill the space and make the room feel claustrophobic.
2. NOT CONSIDERING ITS USAGE
Our sitting rooms, and the living room seating therein, are crucial environments to relax in after a long day’s work, but they can also be places to entertain and impress our friends and family. Choosing which type of sofa and how to arrange it for both purposes, or, just one of them, will help in the perfect arrangement of your couch.
3. DON’T OVERLOOK THE FOCAL POINT
Consider what part of the sitting room is your focal point, before you arrange the couch, the focal point, whether it be a living room TV, a window, a doorway, or another couch will be key to the positioning.
A common mistake is to arrange the sofa so that it does not face the focal point so that it is awkward to relax.
4. NOT THINKING ABOUT SIZE OR POSITION
If you have a small living room, then the couch should be arranged so that it is flat against the wall, you can, says Alicia Cheung, principal at Studio Heimat, make the sofa and wall space behind extra special by adding details such as, ‘millwork or bookshelves, a salon wall, or adding sconces to make the wall more of a feature.’
5. FORGETTING TO CREATE ENOUGH SPACE FOR CONVERSATION
Flow is your new buzzword, ensuring you have flow is extremely important and arrangement is key to that.
Hyphen designer, Eliza McNabb, tells us to, ‘consider the path of travel for people walking in and out of the room. If that path sits between the sofa and the TV that might not be your best set-up. Instead, consider positioning the back of the sofa towards the walkway as a natural divider between the circulation space and the seating area.’
6. OVERLOOKING SEPARATE SEATING AREAS
With a large living room, sofas are extremely useful to create separate seating areas. ‘Sofas are great tools to divide a large living room because of their size. A sofa floating in the middle of the room, anchored on an area rug, feels grounded. They can nicely separate a work-from-home nook or dining space from a living space,’ says Elizabeth McNabb at Hypen.
7. THROW OUT THE RULE BOOK
‘Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules,’ says the author Seth Godin, so if you fall in love with a vintage couch take it home with you and make it work in your arrangement.