The living room—that main gathering spot in a home—is a critical part in your showings. Home stagers recently chimed in at Apartment Therapy with their favorite tips for creating a better-staged living room.
One of their biggest pieces of advice centered on the tendency to cram too much furniture into one space. Ensure the living room has proper flow with sizable walkways among furnishings. Nathan Thompson with Pavilion Broadway, a luxury interior design company with staging services in the U.K., told Apartment Therapy he has a rule of thumb to get the distance right: At least an 18-inch walkway between furniture pieces; with larger spaces, he recommends doubling that to 36 inches.
Getting the portions right is equally as important, designers say. Smaller furniture isn’t necessarily a way to make a space look smaller or inviting. Placing smaller furniture in a large room or one with high ceilings can cause the space to look out of scale, Thompson says. “Coffee tables should be about half the size of your sofa,” he says. A rug should be large enough that it at least touches the front legs of your furniture, he adds.
Designers also suggest avoiding the habit of wanting to be too matchy with your living room design. “If you purchase a matching sofa, loveseat, and chair, anything else you put with it will look like the odd man out,” Justin Riordan, interior designer and founder of the home staging company Spade and Archer Design Agency in Portland. While he’ll match lamps, he says he doesn’t like to match furniture when trying to create a sophisticated, designed space.
“Copyright National Association of REALTORS®. Reprinted with permission.”