Designing a room around your favorite piece of furniture

“Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” - Brian Reed, Designer

The most significant design efforts in the majority of peoples’ lives are geared toward the home. This is where you’ll spend the most time, and since that time is often leisurely and restorative personal and family time, its value is greatly magnified. But sourcing inspiration for your home’s interior can be extremely difficult, especially if you don’t have a background in or affinity for interior design.

It’s far more common (and easier) to come across a favorite piece of furniture than it is to learn the intricacies of interior design, and if you don’t have an eye for design or a particular inspiration for the design of your home, honing in on that furniture piece and building your design around it is a great option. So whether you’re looking for easy hacks to turn up the personality in your boring apartment or completing your immaculately designed home by finishing a tricky room, consider building a room’s design around your favorite piece of furniture.

Furniture Goes Beyond Function

Furniture is, first and foremost, all about functionality. Secondly, furniture contributes greatly to the overall aesthetic of the room in which it’s placed. More often than not, once a piece of furniture’s functionality is established and you place it in your home, it simply exists to serve its functional purpose.

However, with the ever-expanding styles and accessibility of home furnishings, it’s becoming more common for people to find a favorite piece of furniture. When this happens, you might experience the urge to show it off to as many people as possible, post pictures of it on social media, and find excuses to use it more than you would a similar furnishing that you don’t feel a personal connection to. 

Designing a room around your favorite piece of furniture is a fun and unique way to feature it while also magnifying its impact on the home. Furthermore, it can act as built-in inspiration for your home’s interior design, which can be elusive and difficult for many people. Interior design for new construction homes takes a tremendous amount of ideas and inspiration, so designing at least one room around a piece of furniture can help greatly in the process. Doing so can help you to create a highly personalized space that showcases your style—even if you don’t have any interest or talent in interior design. 

Implementing Furniture-Centric Room Design

In order to design a room around your favorite piece of furniture, begin by assessing its key features. Is it a sofa? A chest of drawers? A kitchen table or a cabinet? The furniture category of the piece will, of course, heavily influence the room that can be designed around it, but traditional placement isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. 

The next step will be considering the room as a whole. Is the color palette already established? If not, the color of your furniture can help guide the room’s color palette. If this is the case, it may be best to go with a color palette that’s complementary to the furnishing rather than matching it. This will help to ensure the piece continues to stand out once the room is finished. 

Now that you’ve chosen the room and the color scheme that will surround your favorite piece, it’s time to put the rest of the room together!

Assembling the Room

The room’s other furnishings should complement the featured piece; to ensure that harmony as you select and place the smaller pieces, accessories, and accents for the room, keep these things in mind:

• Avoid painting the room a color that dampens the impact of the featured piece; if the furniture is a dark mahogany wood, for example, go with lighter-colored walls. If it’s a light-colored piece of furniture, a dark shade of paint can make it stand out and shine.
• For the style of the accents and other furnishings, don’t be afraid to stray away from the style of the featured piece. A large Chesterfield sofa placed in a modern-looking room can be beautiful if done creatively.
• Don’t avoid additional statement pieces just because you want to feature your favorite piece of furniture. If that Chesterfield sofa is placed in a simple room under a bold piece of artwork, the eye will be drawn in a pleasing way.

Personal to You, Above All Else

When designing a room around your favorite piece of furniture, remember that your personal style and instincts should be trusted more than anything else—including interior design canon. Blending styles, eras, and colors can result in a room that a textbook design process could never achieve!