What furniture do you have in your living room?

My Main Stream Living Room Furniture is Disappearing

It all started when my niece needed an extra bed for her children when her marriage broke up. Hubby and I had a high back, queen hide-a-bed sofa. It would seat 4 adults or multiple children easily. It had been used for seating about 6 times in the last few years and for sleeping about twice. It took up a lot of space and was hard to move, so, we gave it to our niece. It took 4 adults and removing the legs to get it out of the front door and onto a truck. No need to buy anything new, we still had plenty of chairs.

Next to disappear was the matching twin recliner with a table installed between the recliners. The recliner fit my 6 foot hubby perfectly, but not my 5 foot 2 in frame so much. Once again, it took 4 adults and removing the legs to get it out the door and onto a truck.  My nephew loved his new, man cave, television theater, seating solution.

We rescued a heavy, solid wood, smaller love seat (family heirloom); repaired it, and had cushions made to fit. Fast forward a couple of years, my mother could no longer get out of it and she had to choose alternate seating when she came to visit. Once I could no longer get out of it, without considerable help, the love seat disappeared to find a new home with one of my sisters.

We used to have a 5 foot long coffee table in front of the couch. It temporarily found a home in front of the smaller replacement love seat. After being unable to keep clutter from piling up on it, and repeatedly “barking our shins” on it, we repurposed it into a bench seat by adding a custom cushion and placing it along an entrance wall. It now serves as a landing zone seat for shoe duty.

I replaced the smaller love seat with 2 leather chiropractic seats with arms. The rest of the chairs in the room (also have arms) are light enough in weight for one person to move and have legs that are high enough to vacuum underneath.  The various complementary chairs can be moved in various patterns for conversations and satisfies my need for occasional placement changes, especially when cleaning.

We no longer have a coffee table, we use narrow side tables. Two bean bag chairs function as foot rests or occasional seating.

If I were to do a total living room make over right now, I’d probably buy 4 club chairs and a small side table for each. The results would give infinite placement variations and a spacious open floor area.  I really can’t see ever having big, heavy, main stream furniture again.

My current floor arrangement allows someone to use a motorized wheel chair in the living room. It also allows someone using a walker or cane to sit easily in all the chairs.

One thing I never want again is furniture with square corners.  Bumping into a corner hurts, leaving bruises. It is generally recommended that you pad all sharp edges and corners around small children. Since statistics from various sources state that 1 out of 3 seniors over 65 years of age experience falls each year, adding extra maneuverability space and choosing friendlier furniture with rounded edges should be the way to go.

Drop me a line at adaptiveorganization4you@gmail.com if you’d like a free checklist to enable you to make your home more user friendly.