Create More Space with New Living Room Furniture

(This post is a paid partnership with Homemakers Furniture. All words and opinions are my own.)

When we moved into our new-to-us house last October, the furniture from our old house just.barely.fit in the living room. It seemed strange to me, since the new house is so much bigger than our old one, but the open-concept living space, and shape of the room, makes it a little tough for furniture to fit, let alone be arranged correctly.

When we came to look at the house the first time before putting in an offer, one of the only things that stuck out to me as something I didn’t enjoy (other than those neat beige walls), was the furniture arrangement in the living room. I have a hard rule that if something needs be turned diagonally in a space to fit, then either it doesn’t belong, or you need to rearrange so that it can sit straight-on. I knew that once we got the house, we were going to have to figure out how to have our furniture sit at straight angles and get creative with added seating.

One of the first decisions we made was to not put our television above the fireplace, as it was designed to be in this space. Sorry, builders of the 2000’s…that was just a sad decision! It makes arranging furniture hard because you’re limited in options, not to mention that it’s hard on your neck to look up like that! But I digress…

Once the television was in place, our furniture was able to sit at straight angles, and it also allowed us to bring in two accent chairs for added seating. This arrangement made our old furniture work for the time being, but we couldn’t change anything about its over-stuffed size or dark brown color. To help with the darkness of our space, I’ve been slowly lightening everything I can in the house. We’ve painted the walls white, added white curtains, and have even painted the fireplace and tile surround white. Jason is wary of painting too much of the wood, but trust me, there’s still plenty left.

We try to be careful with our dollars and new furniture just wasn’t a necessity when we first moved in, so we used what we had and made it work! After a while, though, we really wanted to have furniture in the basement and knew our existing pieces would be perfect for that space, allowing us to get something that would fit into the living room better.

I was super excited to be able to partner with Homemakers Furniture (you can find their website HERE) to purchase the new furniture for our space! They have a huge selection in their showroom and even more online, so it made finding the perfect pieces that much easier.

I had been shopping at Homemakers with a client for their own furniture, clear back in February, when I started looking around a bit for our own house. I had spotted a caramel-colored set when I walked into the store and had to get all the details once I was done helping my client with her own pieces. Friends…I knew right then that I wanted this furniture. Like, I didn’t even hesitate. I didn’t need to see anything else, because I wanted to buy it, load it in my car, and get it into our house to start enjoying right in that moment.

Of course, that’s not how my world works, and I needed to get Jason involved in the selection process, so I snapped some pics and went on my merry way.

***Shopping Tip: Take pictures of the whole set that you like, plus a picture of each individual piece, and the information tags on them, as you shop. It is so handy to have these for reference throughout the process, especially if you’re not going to purchase at that time.

For whatever reason, we got busy with other projects and put-off looking for the new furniture for a couple of months. I finally got a Saturday on the calendar for us to go to Homemakers to pick something out and was so pumped. We walked into the store and I went right to the spot my beloved furniture had been on display. Guys…it was gone. My heart was racing. I started to get panicky. We found a salesperson to help us and I was trying to describe the set to them and where it had been, and they said it was gone from the store now. Ummmm…I was having a baby tantrum at this point. It was ugly and I admit it. It’s fine. Embarrassing, yes. Irrational, you bet. But, friends, I admit it and apologize for anything that was said during this time. I needed that furniture.

Things were looking bleak for us, until I remembered the pictures on my phone!! Halleluiah! I was able to pull up the pictures and show the salesperson the sku number so they could look it up in the store’s computer system. I for sure had the Showcase Show-down song from the Price is Right going through my head the entire time they were looking it up. And then the most wonderful thing happened!! The pieces were still available and just had to be ordered! They were on super backorder, though, so my joy had to go on hold for a bit. It was a good exercise in self-control, or so I told myself. You can similar furniture to the pieces we bought HERE.

Now, before you think this is all there is to the story, know that I did let Jason have a look around the store, and he went on a mission that only he can have. He was talking to a sales guy about some gargantuan custom-fabric sectional that was going to cost us more dollars than we had to spend. Not only that, but it would have eaten-up any space we were hoping to open-up by getting different furniture.

Once I had him talked out of that, we looked at a few more pieces, but I just knew what I wanted. I had that gut feeling that it was right. So, we put the order in and then waited. Well, the furniture finally got delivered a couple of weeks ago and I can officially tell you that it’s even better than my expectations. Also, that literally never happens. I don’t want you to think I’m over-reacting. I seriously love this furniture set and don’t care who knows it! The leather is buttery-soft, the color is rich and beautiful, and it’s lower-profile furniture, so it really opens-up the space. The over-all effect of switching out our old, over-stuffed pieces with this couch and loveseat has lightened and brightened our entire living room. We even switched from a side chair to a loveseat (increased seating, yay!) and the space still feels more open.

The over-all experience of buying the furniture has been very positive. The salespeople were very helpful in finding the exact pieces we wanted and setting up delivery. I even called a couple times along the way to check on delivery and they were quick to get the information for me. The delivery process was exactly what was described to me at the time of purchase, as well. I received a call a couple of days before as a reminder of delivery and to tell me the window of time in which they would be at our house. Everyone has horror stories of service and delivery people not showing-up within the time slot they had said they would. Thankfully, that did not happen with Homemakers. They were there within the hours they said they would be, and they also called when they were about 20 minutes out to let me know they were on their way.

One of the delivery guys came up to the door to make sure they were at the correct house and to confirm placement of each of the pieces as to where they would go in the living room. They handled removing the pieces of the door they needed to, in order to get the furniture in the house, and put them back just as they found them when they were done. They had the furniture in the house and in-place within minutes, had me check it over for any damage that might have happened, had me sign-off on it, and they were on their way. The whole experience was very professional. In case you’re not in the Des Moines area, Homemakers does offer FREE 2-day express shipping statewide (on purchases of $499 or more)! You can find more details about that HERE.

Now, I can just sit back (literally) and enjoy our new sofa and loveseat! I love them so much more than I could have imagined and am so excited to see how pretty they look as the leather ages.

If you struggle to have enough seating in your space, or your current furniture feels too large, maybe it’s time to head-out and see what’s available. I always suggest to my clients that they go do some looking first, find a few pieces that they like, take down the measurements, and then tape it out at home to make sure it will fit. Remember, also, that the furniture stores are big open spaces, so the furniture doesn’t look very big in them. Those same pieces will seem much larger in your home, though, so be sure to take into account the measurements and whether or not the pieces are over-stuffed or have clean lines.

While we technically added a bit more furniture by switching out a side chair for a loveseat, the clean lines of the new furniture, make the space seem more open and much lighter. We gained a seat for an additional person and, with pieces that are smaller depth-wise, we even created a bit of extra space for more accent pieces, if we were to want to add them.

If you think certain furniture won’t work in your room, maybe you need to look at the space a little differently and consider looking at pieces that have different lines than what you already own. If you have over-stuffed everything, adding clean lines will make a huge difference in the space and might just afford you more options than you thought you had!

(This post is a paid partnership with Homemakers Furniture. All words and opinions are my own.)