Creating Your Home Haven Tip #2: The Conversation Area

This tip is part of our "Home Haven" series and is provided by Joanna Cohlan, owner of Fresh Eyes For Your Home.

Historically referred to as the drawing room or the parlour, these quaint appellations were given to the space where hosts greeted their guests and served a cup of tea or glass of wine, while catching up on news or gossip.  Today, it’s called "the living room," and it’s probably the only room left in the house for real time conversation, because the computer and the TV are now elsewhere in the home.  It may be a lost art, but the conversation is desperate for a space of its own.

Even if your living room does include a TV, working that TV in tastefully, without compromising the conversation, should be your goal.  Until recently, we not only had to make room for the large tube TV, but the enormous armoires that hid them.  Luckily, those tube televisions are being phased out with flat screens, and the conversation area can reclaim its importance.

Tips for Creating Your Conversation Area

• Define your conversation area with a rug.  Furniture can either sit on or off the rug, but make sure to take accurate measurements so that the rug provides the right footprint for the furniture you select.
• Combine two love seats and a chair or a sofa with two chairs to anchor your conversation area and create a comfortable and intimate environment.
• If there is a TV in the room, it should not take center stage.  Furniture can move away from the walls, and TV’s can be either wall-hung, with an articulating arm for viewing, on top of a console, or in a wall unit that complements the conversation area.
• The size of your TV should be determined by the size of the room and the distance between your conversation area and the TV, so don’t buy the TV first and retro-fit your seating, or you’ll end up with a "man cave" instead of a conversation area.
• An ottoman is a living room MUST! Ottomans double as seating and as coffee tables, come in all shapes and sizes, and can be moved in, out, or around your room easily.  Tucked under a sofa table, in a corner, or under a window, ottomans can be used for storage, and when done in bold colors, totally spice up a neutral palette and draw the eye away from the TV and back to the conversation.

Joanna Cohlan, owner of Fresh Eyes For Your Home, is an interior decorator and home stager serving Westchester County and NYC.  She specializes in creating real rooms for real people - creatively, quickly, and affordably, and what you always get from Joanna is design outside the box.

Flickr image from Amy Guth

Comments

[George Klein]

Joanna designed our living room/parlor, and it works beautifully, enabling conversation, intimate for twos or threes, and for larger get-togethers. It's a space I love to be in for talking, for music-making, reading, or meditating.

[Amber Singleton Riviere]

Thanks for commenting, George! Your living space sounds great, and Joanna is right on the money -- we need to reclaim face-to-face conversation these days.