Ideas for Adding a Little Extra Seating to Your Small Living Room

Ideas for Adding a Little Extra Seating to Your Small Living Room

Having a small living room can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you love to entertain. How do you fit in seating for all those people and still leave room to move? We've got some solutions.

Group low-backed chairs in front of the TV.

One particularly ornery thing about smaller living rooms is where to add extra seating without blocking the television. This living room from One Kings Lane has a particularly clever solution to that. The TV is mounted to the wall directly across from the sofa, in a prime viewing spot, and a couple of low-backed chairs sit in front of it. This means the room can do double duty—perfect for watching television by yourself or with a friend, or for conversation with a larger group.

Tuck extra seating under the coffee table.

In this living room from Domino, extra seating (those fluffy little stools, which seem almost alive) hides under the coffee table, ready to be called into action at a moment's notice. An acrylic coffee table allows you to appreciate your stools even when you aren't sitting on them.

Have a coffee table that is extra seating.

An ottoman (or upholstered bench) as coffee table adds a nice, cushy look to your living room, and if guests show up it can easily make the switch to seating. Use a tray (as in this interior from Homepolish) to provide a resting spot for drinks, and make whisking away coffee-table clutter the work of a moment.

Park stools under a console.

Stools that dock under a console or sofa table, like Abby Low's living room as seen on Cup of Jo, can serve as seating when needed (and provide storage when not in use).

Embrace the magic of footstools.

The two 'X' benches in Danielle and Morty's Upper West Side home serve two important functions: they provide extra seating, and help to create a distinction between the living room and dining room. They also take up a lot less space than a loveseat or two chairs would, and keep sight lines between the two spaces uninterrupted.

Make your living room do double duty.

From Domino, here's a setup you don't see often: a couch paired with, instead of a coffee table, a dining table, and two dining chairs. The reason people don't do this very often probably has a lot to do with the fact that having a dining table in front of your couch makes it a lot harder to watch TV. But if this isn't an issue for you, and you have people over for tea a lot more than you watch television, an arrangement like this one is a great way to add seating to your living room, and fit the functions of dining room and living room into a single space.

Original article and pictures take www.apartmenttherapy.com site