Living room furniture

Choosing living room furniture

Living room furniture is the hardest category to buy from photographs, because the two things that decide whether you will be happy — scale and fabric — are the two things a photograph distorts. A three-seater shot in a large showroom reads compact; the same piece against a 12-by-14 lounge wall does not. Every listing in this category therefore leads with the full footprint, the seat depth and the height under the arm, in centimetres and in inches, so you can measure your own room rather than judge by eye.

Before ordering any large upholstered piece, measure three things: the wall it will sit against, the narrowest doorway between the street and the room, and the tightest turn on the stairs. A sofa that fits the room but not the stairwell is a common and expensive mistake, and it is avoidable in five minutes with a tape measure.

Seat depth is worth understanding. A deep seat suits lounging and taller sitters; a shallower one is easier to get out of and better for upright sitting and smaller frames. Neither is better in the abstract — they suit different rooms and different people, and the number is on every product page so you can compare like with like.

Where a listing gives a material, a lead time or a weight capacity, that figure is specific to that piece rather than a category-wide claim.