The trick to furnishing your living room is to choose furniture in such a way that it creates an optical illusion. This involves either making a naturally cramped and claustrophobic place seem more spacious than it is or transforming a large, intimidating space into a small, intimate gathering of strategically placed furniture pieces that feels friendly, cozy and inviting.
Regardless of the size and scope of your furnishing efforts, you will need to consider a lot of factors, and pay careful attention to weight, scale, and colors. And since you have a very narrow margin of error – nobody wants to see their entire project ruined by a single uninspired choice and go through the hassle of refunding the furniture -, you have to get creative with your furnishing efforts. Fortunately, Aaron’s Rental has a business model that makes this entire process much easier. Here’s how to furnish your perfect living room with Aaron’s Rental.
Aaron’s Rental Business Model
Aaron’s Rentals has one of the most interesting business models out of all the renting services on the market. Aaron’s is what they call a ‘’rent-to-own’’ company. This basically means that everything you rent, by making regular payments, you get to own permanently at the end of the contract. If you are tight on cash, or simply want to furnish your house in a timely fashion, their business model caters to this specific situation.
As for the financial aspect, Aarons Rental living room furniture prices vary on a region to region basis, but you can easily verify what it will cost you by logging on to their official website and typing in your local zip code. After that, you are free to browse their wide variety of products that cover any possible household necessity.
Focus on Mirrors
If you are dealing with a smaller than average living room, the easiest tip that designers will suggest is focusing on mirrors. This does not mean filling the falls with mirror – rather placing them strategically in tight places in order to make them feel large than they are.
The first thing that you can do in this sense is hanging a mirror in a central spot, creating a focal point that is noticeable as soon as someone enters the room. If the mirror is installed behind a light source, let us say, a pendant lamp, or a candle, or a simple light bulb, the light will be reflected in the mirror, creating a cozy, intimate atmosphere, and giving a sense of scale in the process. You can also place the mirror across the window, so as to reflect the view from outside and create the optical illusion of another window.
Choose Small Furniture Pieces
In the case of average sized living rooms, you do not want to fill up the entire room with a few furniture pieces. Ideally, you should pick furniture in such a way that the room is easily traversable, while not feeling bigger or emptier than it should. As we have previously stated, it is important to create a focal point, as well as setting up conversation ‘’areas’’.
For this purpose, a small sofa with thin arms is perfect to fill up the extra space and create a focal point. As for the rest of the furniture, you can either opt for a few loveseats, or several chairs positioned around the coffee table. Speaking of which, glass coffee or end tables will occupy less visual space than wooden ones – so, if you want to further enhance the optical illusion of space, you should take this into consideration.
The important thing is to experiment and see which combination is best suited to the geometry of your living room. You can do this by logging onto Aaron’s Rentals and browsing through their generous catalog.
If you feel confident into your decorating abilities, you can buy individual furniture pieces and arrange them at your will. If not, Aaron’s has premade set pieces of furniture – for example, instead of buying a couch, an armchair, and a coffee table individually, you can opt for a special premade set that was conceptualized and greenlit by the store.
There is one last thing that we have the address, and it is related to rugs. If the rug is too small, it will give the impression of asymmetry; the same thing applies if it is too big. Ideally, you will want your furniture to sit on top of the rug while leaving 10 to 20 inches of space between the rug and the walls.
Decide on a Color Palette
The one thing that will contribute even more to setting the mood than the decorative pieces and furniture itself is the color palette. Colors will be responsible for the atmosphere – blue and green are associated with calm and serenity, while yellow, orange and red will create a vibrant, energizing atmosphere.
For small to medium-sized living room, it is a good idea to use neutral colors on walls, floor, ceiling and some furniture pieces. For instance, a color palette consisting of beiges or off whites will, similar to mirrors, create an optical illusion, widening the available space by ‘’pushing’’ the walls. Moreover, neutral colors will make the living room better illuminated, while also creating a calming, inviting environment.
Conclusion
Many people will just push the sofa against the wall, buy a couple of chairs and call it a day, but properly decorating and furnishing the living room is an art in it of itself. Your main objective is to create the optical illusion of scale (if the living room is small) and tightness (if it is large) by strategic furniture placement and setting the mood through the color palette. If this is your first time going through this, the end result might coincide with your expectations – but by following basic design tips (like the ones presented in this article) and experimenting, you will soon get the hang of it.
