Small Living Room Layout Ideas (One Awkward Room – 4 Ways)
I love rearranging our furniture to change things up on a tight budget, and also because I genuinely love the pieces we already own. In this post, I’m sharing 4 small living room layout ideas using mostly the same furniture, just arranged differently each time.
We live in a small twin home, which means our living room is on the smaller side and has an awkward layout to work with. The biggest challenge has always been that the sliding glass door sits off to one side, right next to the fireplace, rather than more centered in the room, which makes it tricky to connect the sofa and TV area with the fireplace sitting area. The fireplace area itself can only be arranged one way, so all the experimenting happens on the sofa and TV side of the room. Every arrangement I try has to work around that fixed point, and I think all four layouts do a pretty good job of it, but they each come with their own tradeoffs.
If you’re dealing with a similar awkward living room layout, especially one with a fireplace that doesn’t naturally align with your seating area, I hope seeing these four real-life arrangements helps you figure out what might work in your space, too.
The 4 different layouts
The fireplace area that never changes
While the sofa side of the room gets all the rearranging, the fireplace area stays the same in every layout, with two leather swivel chairs facing the fireplace. For a long time, I had a small glass table in the center, which looked great but wasn’t very practical. I recently replaced it with a round velvet fringe ottoman, which has been a game-changer, especially when we have the fireplace on and just want to put our feet up and relax.
To tie the two sides of the room together, I used the same rug as on the sofa side, just in a smaller size. It is one of those little details that makes a big difference in making the whole room feel cohesive, even though it is essentially two separate seating areas.
And the shelving unit right behind the left swivel chair.
Layout 1: 3-seat sofa under the window with 2 accent chairs
This is currently my favorite arrangement and the one I keep coming back to. Placing the larger sofa under the window works really well because the accent chairs have a low backrest, which means you can still see the TV when nobody is sitting in them. And if we have guests over and want to gather by the fireplace instead, the chairs are easy to move over there.
The tradeoff is that it has gotten harder to photograph this way since the light comes in from behind the sofa. But in terms of how the room actually lives and functions day to day, this one wins. If you have a small, awkward living room with a fireplace, this type of arrangement is worth trying first.
I found two affordable accent chairs that are perfect for this arrangement. You can see the full neutral boho living room reveal here.
I also just want to show you the bleached cherry wood desk that you can see in every layout sketch, but that isn’t really in any of the photos.
I made the blue tassel hanging on my lamps. Check out my tutorial on how to make a fancy tassel to get all the details. I also made the black and white curtains.
And lastly, without the two chairs and only one chair to the side:
Layout 2: Loveseat under the window with 2 armchairs
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This is how I had the room arranged last spring for this full home tour. Because the loveseat is smaller, it ends up sitting off-center under the window, which bothered me a little. I solved it by extending the curtains wider than the window to disguise the asymmetry and create the illusion of a more centered, symmetrical look. That trick works really well, and I would recommend it to anyone dealing with a similar off-center furniture situation.
It works well visually, though it does cut off the fireplace area a bit more from the rest of the living room with the two chairs than with the other configurations. This is why I tried this set-up with swivel chairs after that instead.
I love the idea of swivel chairs in an awkward living room layout like this because you can rotate them toward the TV or the fireplace, depending on where the conversation is happening. I found a gorgeous pair of gray velvet swivel chairs at HomeGoods for $199 each. They looked beautiful, but the arm height was noticeably different from the sofas, and with that many chairs in the room, it just felt too crowded, especially looking back toward the fireplace. My daughter was heartbroken when I returned them!
The big takeaway with this layout is that swivel chairs are a really smart solution for a small, awkward living room with two separate zones, but pay close attention to arm height relative to your sofas and be careful not to overcrowd the space with too many seats.
Layout 3: Loveseat under the window with a chaise
I really loved the idea of this layout and the comfort a chaise brings for lounging while watching TV. The problem was that the chaise was slightly too narrow for the space, so it never looked quite right proportionally. If I ever find the right-sized (affordable) chaise, I would absolutely try this again.
If you love the idea of just lying down and watching TV, a chaise could be a great solution to bridge the two separate areas. The reason I moved away from it is that I couldn’t find one in the right size and color that was also affordable, and unlike the accent chairs, it couldn’t do double duty by moving over to the fireplace area when we have guests. The movability factor ended up being more important to me than the lounging comfort.
Below, you can see how narrow it is. My husband’s shoulders were hanging over the sides.
Layout 4: Loveseat under the window with a wingback chair and ottoman
This was our setup for the longest time, and it served us well through many seasonal refreshes. Just swapping out pillows, curtains, throws, and accessories made it feel completely different from one season to the next.
The reason I eventually moved away from it (besides it being old and dirty) is that the wingback chair’s back was too tall and blocked the sightline between the sofa area and the fireplace. In a small open-plan living room where you’re trying to connect two zones, furniture height really matters. Lower-profile chairs or open-arm styles tend to keep the space feeling more connected.
Same configuration as above but with my Moroccan BeniO.
Looking at all four layouts really shows how much a small, awkward living room can change just by moving the same pieces around. Most of the furniture stayed exactly the same across all four arrangements. The only difference was experimenting with different seating options on the accent chair side, which is also the most affordable way to refresh a room without starting from scratch.
Which layout is your favorite? I’d love to know in the comments!
Tschüß,
I like the 3 seater under the window like you have it now.
It seems more spacious. I too have had a long living room
and had to break it up into two spaces. It was very hard to
settle on an arrangement that worked.
Girl, you have had so many chairs in the past few months. I can’t remember what you kept. Did you send back the chaise?
LOL, yes I did
I think that with a living room your size and the position of the large window I would go with two 3-person sofas instead of a 3 and 2(loveseat). Then I would make or buy a larger sofa table to accomodate that. I really like the one with the strandmon chair in it as far as layout. Your livingroom is already awesome! Though ☺
“Awesome though!” Not “awesome! Though” ☺☺☺
Definitely Katja, I was thinking the same thing about having two 3 seaters and a larger coffee table, it’s just not in the budget right now. When these are ready to head out, that’s what I will do!
fun to look at all of these but i think i love the latest the greatest!
Thank you! I was thinking the same thing as Katja though, 2 3 seaters would be the best 😉