Sectional Sofas in Small Spaces

Decorating a small living space is often a challenge. When you are decorating a room that contains a large sectional sofa, it can be extra tough to make the room look the way you want it. Fortunately, there are some tricks you can use to make the room look larger and more spacious that are relatively easy to do.

• Let the sectional sofa be the focus point of the room. Since a sectional sofa provides seating for everyone, there is no need for extra chairs that only take up space. Removing unneeded furniture and accessories helps to keep the living space more open. You may also wish to consider replacing tabletop lamps with wall lamps for reading and watching television. This eliminates the need for using end tables, which take up valuable open space placed next to the sides of the sofa.
  
  

Cottage Living Room photo from Shutterstock

• Choose a light-colored sectional sofa for your small living space. Lighter colors typically make small rooms appear larger and more open. On the other hand, darker colors tend to take up more visual space and make a room look smaller and more full.
  
  
• Paint the walls a shade of paint that is just a little bit lighter in color than the color of your sectional sofa. This keeps your eyes from focusing in on the sectional sofa by tricking your eyes into seeing a long wall of color instead.
  
  
• Make the walls in the room a light or neutral color if you have a dark-colored sectional sofa. Since dark colors tend to take up more space visually, you can offset this by painting the walls of the room a lighter color. If your sectional sofa is a dark brown, you may also find that you can minimize the visual size of the sofa by using a color on the walls that is neutral.
  
  
• Use a coffee table and end tables that have glass tops. Since you can see the floor through the glass table tops, the coffee table and the end tables will seem to "disappear" and not take up as much visual space. This will also helps to make the room look more open and inviting.
  
  
• Keep the clutter in the room to a minimum. Clutter can make even the largest of rooms seem small. When the clutter is in a small room, it will actually fill up the space and the room will appear crowded. Use baskets or decorative boxes to hold magazines, DVDs, and other items you wish to keep in your living room. This keeps the items close by for when you need them, but allows you to keep the space open, since the items are hidden away and out of view.
  
  
• Hang lightweight curtains on the windows. Keep the curtains open during the day to let the sun shine in. This creates a look that the room is larger since there is more light in the room. It also tricks the eyes into thinking the room is bigger since you can see the outside.

Lindsey Ratcliff writes for design blogs and suggests SofasandSectionals.com to find your next sofa.

Take the Next Step:

• For more on decorating family and living rooms, please visit here.
• For more on making the most of small spaces, please visit here.

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