How to choose furniture for a small living room
Start with the room’s main function and the walkways, not with the sofa. Decide what happens here most often: talking, watching films, working or children playing. Keep a main walkway of about 80 to 90 cm and 40 to 50 cm between the sofa and the coffee table. Only then pick specific pieces using their real dimensions.
A piece can fit on paper and still get in the way every day. What you need to check is the room in use, with doors and drawers open, not a plan with everything closed.
One main function
A small living room cannot do everything at once. If films are watched in the evening and someone works there during the day, decide which comes first. The main function gets the best spot and the large furniture. The secondary one is handled with movable pieces: a side table on castors, a folding table, an armchair that turns easily.
In an Eixample flat, the living room is often the route to the balcony. The way to the balcony door has to stay clear, or the balcony simply stops being used. In a flat by the sea in Castelldefels, the sofa usually faces the view, and the television takes second place.
Walkways and real dimensions
The main route through the room needs about 80 to 90 cm. Between sofa and coffee table, 40 to 50 cm: any closer and it is hard to stand up, any further and you cannot reach your cup. In front of a unit with drawers you need the depth of an open drawer plus room for a person. The door into the room should not hit the armchair.
A sofa listed at 90 cm deep, with back cushions, takes up more in real life. A corner sofa closes off two walls at once and often cuts across the route. A sofa bed, opened out, needs roughly another metre. Use the dimensions of the actual model from the manufacturer’s data sheet, not a generic rectangle from a planning app.
What works in a small room
A sofa without bulky arms gives the same seat 20 to 30 cm shorter. Furniture on legs shows the floor, and the room reads as more open. A wall-hung TV unit instead of a floor-standing one lets the robot vacuum through and makes the wall look lighter. A built-in window seat with drawers replaces an armchair and a cupboard at the same time. Two nesting tables instead of one big coffee table.
In older buildings with ceilings over three metres, storage goes up: shelving or a cupboard to the ceiling takes very little floor area.
What to decide before the renovation, not after
Furniture can be swapped in a day; sockets only by redoing the finishes. That is why the layout is fixed before first-fix electrics. Sockets by both ends of the sofa for floor lamps and chargers. A conduit in the wall behind the TV so no cables show. A floor socket if the sofa sits in the middle of the room. The curtain track in the ceiling rather than on the wall.
Check where the air conditioning blows: an indoor unit above the sofa will blow straight onto your head. Lighting scenarios are covered in a separate guide, but the positions of light points also depend on the furniture layout.
Test before you order
Mark the furniture footprints on the floor with painter’s tape that will not damage the finish, and put cardboard boxes of the right height in place. Walk through the room, sit down, open the doors. In ten minutes you will know whether the coffee table is in the way and whether there is enough room to reach the balcony.
Before ordering the sofa, check that it will get up the stairs and into the lift. Our guide on deliveries during a renovation covers that.
Next step
To discuss the design, prepare a plan of the room, photos, dimensions and a list of what happens in the living room on an ordinary day. What you compare are layouts that work, not styles. We handle interior design together with the renovation, so sockets, lighting and built-in furniture are tied to the layout from the start. We reply within an hour, in Russian or Spanish.