How to get a new interior without spending a cent!
Lets talk about wall hugging. Recently I was at friends house for dinner and she has been lamenting to me since she moved into this new place that she couldn't wait for it look finished. She needed this and that, and new chairs etc and then she'd be happy. It occurred to me suddenly then that she is a wall hugger!
As I looked around this medium-sized open plan living and dining room, I realised that actually she had quite a few pieces of furniture but they were all hugging the walls leaving the centre of the room void and cold. In the space it took for her to serve up the meals on to plates, around 3 minutes, I re-arranged her furniture simply by pulling all the furniture away from the walls.... MIND BLOWN. My friend turned around and said, `what the hell just happened...I have a proper home and I love it!'
So let's have a quick look at how you can achieve a whole new look at home without spending one cent through simple furniture placement.
Pushing your sofa up against a wall is the number one decorating mistake that people make when arranging their furniture. Even in a small room, you can leave a gap of say 400 mm behind a sofa with a low hung artwork behind it and it will look smart and pleasing to the eye. In the image above you can see the designer has put a sideboard and mirror against the wall, bringing the sofa into the middle of the room and on the rug to define the space. If you don't have room, you can add a small console behind the sofa, which will give you somewhere to sit artworks or a lamp. It looks great, give it a try if you are in small apartment.
Try thinking outside the square and have fun moving things around. Below are some diagrams of ways a small room can work, it's just a matter of working out the flow and making sure you leave enough room to walk through and have access to a side table.
If your room is open-plan, try putting your sofa in the middle with a console table behind not only does it serve as a divider, it makes a place for you to sit a big vase of flowers, an indoor plant or a lamp that will create height in the room. I personally always have a console table behind my sofa, I just love the look.
In this image they have moved the sofa into the middle of the room dividing it from the dining table, but more than that, they have created a cosy space with the other chair facing away from the TV.
Please, please, create a place that is conducive to conversation! Life is about connections and relationships and your home should be the starting place for those interactions. Not every chair should be facing a TV.
You can use side tables, indoor plants, rugs, ottomans, stools, benches to fill out a space...
If you need help, please shoot me an email. My company Little Bowerbird has a special talent for de-cluttering and re-arranging your current interior, helping you decided if you need to update your interior or add new pieces.
Please check out or Facebook page or Instagram for more ideas and inspiration. Also, I'm happy to answer your questions in the comment box below.
Joc x
Principal Designer
