How to make a large L-shaped couch take up less space in a room

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My cousins recently moved from California to Texas and their over-sized L-shaped sofa that fit perfectly in their last living room was taking up the ENTIRE living space of their new living room.

Which means this effectively cut off the living room from the rest of the living space.

If passage was difficult for the kids, it was nigh impossible for adults.

Luckily for them my interior decorator mother, Laura, lives near by, and she came over to see what could be done about the situation, without having to buy a new couch.

What was her solution? Though the obvious choice is to follow the squared lines of the home and mirror that with the couch, she had the thought to angle the couch. Yes, the idea of having their couch on an angle didn’t sound great at first, but look how much it opens up the living space…

But then that left a problem of there being TOO much open space on the other side of the angled couch. But what they saw as a problem, Laura saw as an opportunity to create a “moment.”

Now when someone is cooking, someone else can have a seat in this special corner and keep them company! Perhaps with a glass of wine…

So the lesson here is, if you have a pieces of furniture that seem almost too large for your living space, try angling them and see what happens!


Do YOU have any design quandaries? Maybe you’re not sure how to arrange YOUR living room? Perhaps you’re not sure what colors will complement your existing bathroom tiles? Let’s take advantage of having an interior designer at our fingertips! Contact us with your design questions, make sure to include as many photos (and possibly dimensions) as possible and let’s see what she can solve for you!

Comments on How to make a large L-shaped couch take up less space in a room

  1. Our solution for our too-massive sectional in our too-small space; we busted that mother up. Now, there’s a loveseat in front of the bar (bonus, the loveseat has the fold-out bed, so this leaves plenty of room to use it,) the long couch along the other wall, facing the TV and the chaise is in a corner that was a pointless nook, anyway.
    The connectors where the edges meet aren’t exactly handsome, but it would be easy to cover that. Maybe with a board wrapped with batting, then staple some fabric over and screw it in. We didn’t bother, and we hardly notice.

  2. We converted the dining room in our new house to a media room, because we didn’t need a separate dining room and didn’t want the TV and the Tower of Power dominating the living room (which is lined with bookcases anyway).

    Our seating was a chaise and one-arm loveseat from IKEA, which in the old place fit together to make a nice long couch, but the dining room in the new place is too small to put ’em in normally, and if we kept them separated we’d block off the kitchen entrance.

    Our solution was to place the long sides together (and use Velcro strips to strap the legs together so they stay!) into a bed-like thing. It’s great for lounging (although a bit cumbersome to clamber in and out!), easy to drag away from the TV if we want the space for Wii or Kinect games, and when people come over we can unstrap ’em and use various parts for seating elsewhere in the house. It also served as a spare bed when we had friends over.

    Photo: http://magatsu.net/pic5/house/DSC_0032.jpg (the kitchen entrance is just off-camera to the right, and I’m taking the photo from the entrace hall behind the couch & console table.)

  3. We have a super small lounge room, maybe 3m x 4m (9’x12′) and we actually bought a massive l-shape lounge to fit (or take up the entire) the room, cuz it provides more seating, and actually make the room look larger than if we were to cram in two 2- or 3-seaters.

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