Living Room Layouts Made Easy

Your living room is the one room in your home where looks and layout really matter. You entertain friends and family in your living room, cuddle up on the couch with your kids and watch a movie, or sit down and have a family game night. Because it’s such a multi-purpose, constantly-used room, it’s really important to choose the right furniture and make the layout work for you.

With Best Buy’s wide assortment of living room furniture, breathing life into your living room is really easy. Just follow these tips and tricks to create the perfect living room for you.

Your first step to the perfect living room: de-cluttering

Before you jump into buying new furniture or re-arrange existing pieces, you should take steps to de-clutter your living room. Remove anything that no longer works for you, organize your games, game consoles, and books, and consider storage for extra blankets and throw pillows.

When you have a clean space in your living room, inspiration is sure to follow.

Inspiration for your living room furniture

Where do you go for inspiration for living room furniture? For me, magazines are a tried and true helping hand. They give ideas for colour, size, and style, then I sit down with my computer and a cup of coffee and head online to choose the perfect living room furniture for my home.

Prior to shopping, you should also decide what you use your living room for. Is it mainly for hanging out and watching TV? You might even use your living room as an extra bedroom when you have guests over. In that case, search for inspiration for sofa beds and dream up ideas of where you’ll put it and how you’ll group furniture around it to make it work.

Choosing your living room furniture online

The most fun I’ve ever had couch shopping wasn’t walking through a showroom; it was surfing online. When you shop online the sky is the limit for sizes, colours, and fabrics, and I’ve always found exactly what I wanted without ever leaving my house.

A great tip for shopping for living room furniture online is to measure out your existing furniture and making a note of it. That way, when you’re clicking through the different couches, love seats, and tables, you can quickly see if something will or won’t fit.

To test different colours, you can also bring up the colour of the furniture on your computer, tablet, or phone screen and hold it up next to the wall in your living room. Using an image will make it easy to see what works.

Be aware of size and space considerations

You’ve fallen in love with a couch online, but you can’t figure out if it will fit in your space. How can you tell if it will fit into your home? An easy trick is to use painter’s tape on your floor, get out your tape measure, and map out exactly how much space your new couch will take up. With the tape on your floor you can arrange other furniture around it, and it gives you an easy way to visualize your new space.

You should also keep in mind that decorating your living room is all about scale. That means larger rooms always need furniture that’s larger. If you have a smaller room, you should choose smaller furniture to make it work.

How does your living room flow?

Do you ever feel claustrophobic when you walk into your living room? Do you feel as though you’re going to bump into your couch, table, or you have to move around something to get to a spot to sit down? Odds are, the flow of your room isn’t quite right.

Even in a small room, you should have at least three feet of space in high traffic areas. You need to be able to walk in and out of the room without touching anything.

Achieve the best flow by defining areas in your living room

Creating the right flow in your living room also means you create spaces for chatting and hanging out. Place your furniture facing other furniture, group your cozy chairs and comfortable couch near each other, and have your tables in the middle to place objects like game controllers or board games.

Flow is one of the reasons why people choose large sectional couches. The L shape positions people near each other and gives them a comfortable place to sit, watch TV, and talk.

One easy way to create a perfect flow in your living room is to pair your furniture. That doesn’t mean everything has to match, but if you choose similar styles of chair, similar end tables, and two lamps that are the same size, the objects in your room will complement each other.

In a large room, setting up different areas is really important. You can have a small table and two chairs for a chess area. If you play music as a family, an area set up with your instruments will be your go-to hang out spot when you get together and jam. You can also create an area for crafting that’s near the sofa so you can easily pull it out and work on crafts together.

Designating a focal point in your living room

Focal point is important in a living room. You want something for people to naturally look at the first minute they walk in. That could mean you have a large picture window with a pretty view, a beautiful fireplace, or an amazing 4K TV hung on the wall with a TV mount.

Everything in your room should be arranged around your focal point. If your focal point is a flat screen TV, you should have your sofa or home theatre seating placed directly in front of your TV. That way, everyone on the couch will have the best view of the movie or TV show.

Even if you don’t have a focal point right now, it’s really easy to build one in. You can add a large mirror, a wall of books, a piece of artwork, a new TV, or glass case of cherished family objects.

The perfect living room is just a few clicks away

A living room is the most important room in your home, and by following these tips you’ll be able to set up a space that everyone loves. Check out all of the living room furniture available online at Best Buy, and you’ll enjoy your most-used space even more.