Many homeowners want to make their living room the gathering place and focal point of the home. Furniture placement, comfy options, and creating cohesion with other decor elements all need to work together to create a conversational feel. The biggest pieces in a living room will contribute the most to creating that conversational gathering space you dream of. Here are some professional tips on how to create a comfortable and conversational living room in any sized home.  

Distance Is Key

While you want your pieces of seated furniture to be close enough together to have a productive conversation, you don’t want people to feel cramped or unable to access certain places when others are seated in the room. This can create a sense of claustrophobia and potentially slow or dampen the conversation. Having a clear walking space around every piece of furniture will make everyone feel more comfortable and ensure that couches, ottomans, and chairs are accessible to everyone. 

Float Your Furniture

Another option that homeowners may not consider is floating the furniture. This refers to putting the furniture towards the center of the room, rather than up against windows or walls. Putting items toward the center of the room allows for more walking space behind a couch or armchair, but also makes a more cozy talking area, where pieces are close enough together to be able to hear each other. This technique can also help your living feel much larger, encouraging more people to gather or spend time in a living room that doesn’t feel cramped.

Consider Two Facing Sofas

In large living rooms, having multiple seating options is necessary if you want to gather a large group of people. Having two sofas that face each other or a large sectional will ensure you can see everyone’s faces and clearly hear the conversation. This layout combines comfort and sophistication that encourages people to talk to each other. Place a coffee table in between to provide a place for people to put down their phones or set their drink while chatting. 

Include Comfy Accent Chairs

One of the biggest things to consider is the comfort of your seating options. If someone isn’t comfortable sitting in a living room or around a table, they will be less likely to stick around and want to chat. Sitting on a hard chair causes back and leg pain, which will cause people to get up and walk around, stand or sit elsewhere, or leave the room entirely. 

Adding accent chairs is a great way to add more personality to the space, but finding options that aren’t too modern and uncomfortable is better if you want a conversational living room. Chairs with harsh angles or no padding will not help you create a place people want to gather.

Create A Circle Of Armchairs

Another popular seating setup is to have 4 or 5 armchairs in a circle around your coffee table or a semicircle around a fireplace or TV. This not only makes the room have a focal point needed for a cohesive design, but also allows everyone to be seen during a conversation. Armchairs with plenty of padding or even recliners are a great way to make sure everyone is comfortable for a big watch party or talkative family gathering. Consider plush materials or options that offer enough back support, without feeling stiff. A comfortable living room is a conversational living room.

Furniture Options From Sugar House Furniture 

Our furniture is built to last a lifetime, while also providing the comfort, aesthetics, and modern design you desire. Pieces from Sugar House Furniture can help you create a conversational living room, furnish a cozy bedroom, upgrade your dining area, and so much more. We understand that furniture is an investment, so it is important to find the pieces that speak to you. Combining style and function is important to our builders, especially when we know you will be using these pieces and passing them on to future generations. 

Serving the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding areas, Sugar House Furniture has options for different home styles and sizes. While mission style furniture may not immediately strike you as modern, we have a wide variety of styles and wood colors to choose from. We promise you can find a piece that meets your personal style in our catalog. If you are ready to upgrade your home with quality craftsmanship and durable furniture, visit our showroom to get started.

Your nightstand is an important part of your morning routine and bedtime ritual. The place to store all of your essentials, from tissue boxes to phone chargers, it’s easy for a bedside table to appear cluttered and messy. Enhance the way your room looks and feels by styling your nightstand with creative decorations and functional items.

Utilizing Your Nightstand’s Design

Before we dive into fun ways to style your nightstand, it’s important to know how you can best use its features for decorating. 

A bedside table with drawers or cabinets offers additional storage space and a place to hide more unsightly objects, such as pill bottles or TV remotes. A nightstand that has shelves offers more surfaces for decor, books, alarm clocks, or other important items. If you have a simple table with just legs and a top, you may want to be more strategic when it comes to what you style it with. Examine your nightstand’s characteristics and see how they can best be used for your new setup.

1. Flowers and Foliage

Placing flowers and plants in your home is a simple and effective way to add beauty and elegance to your interior design. Select a colorful bouquet to add excitement, choose select flowers with colors that match your bedroom, use brown branches for a sleek look, or add greenery for a calm and natural feel. The vase or pot you use adds another element of style: play with color, shape, opacity, and texture.

When decorating with plants and flowers, you can consider a few options:

• A Potted Plant: A potted plant with big green leaves or seasonal blossoms, like an orchid, can be a stunning addition to your bedside table, and even reduce indoor air pollution. Ensure that it receives light and water to keep it from dying.
• Live Flowers or Leaves: Flowers or stems with leaves placed in a vase full of water are another popular way to decorate. Change them out as they die, and choose flowers that match the season. Avoid flowers with irritating pollen or plants you may be allergic to.
• Dried Flowers: Buy dried flowers from a floral shop, or simply hang any flowers you have collected upside down for a few days to dry out and preserve them for as long as you want on your nightstand.

2. Usable Trays

A small ceramic tray, a glass dish, or a woven basket to not only decorate your bedside table, but to hold any essentials. Place jewelry, eyewear, chapstick, hair elastics or clips, watches, perfume, pens, and any other small items in a tray to keep your nightstand tidy. Select a tray that stands out with gold or bold colors, choose a clear glass dish for a clean look, or pick a tiny woven basket for neutral tones. A tray keeps the top of your nightstand usable while elevating its look.

3. Creative Candles

A candle is a classic and easy way to style your nightstand. Positioning two or more candles together, or on different sides of the table, adds elegance and charm. Choosing cables in colorful glass jars adds a bit of color as well. If you want to really add character to the style of your bedside table, decorate with a unique candle.

Made into quirky shapes with stylized molds, you can find candles in exciting forms and colors. From candles representing the shape of a rose to abstract candles in the form of swirly pillars or warped orbs, a fun candle can add creativity and flair to your bedroom nightstand.

4. Books and Lamps

Two important objects that you will almost always see on a bedside table are a lamp and a book. The lamp you choose for your nightstand makes a big difference in its overall style. With different shapes and designs for a lamp base, and just as many options for a lamp shade, you’ll want to use a lamp that complements your nightstand while offering relaxing light for reading before bed.

 Some like to stack their favorite books along the bottom shelf of a table, or choose books with certain colors to display. Place one book in the center of your nightstand for a minimalistic style, and switch it out with a new book when you are finished reading. Choose your favorite book that you want visible at all times, and place a lamp on top of it to pair the two items together when styling your table.

5. Art and Pictures

Personalize your bedside table with frames holding pictures of family members, or pieces of your favorite artwork. Stylish pieces of art can add vibrance and character to your table, while photographs create a sentimental and lively appearance. 

6. Stacking Decorations

Layer pictures behind flower vases or above lamps, place candles on trays, or stack items like alarm clocks or frames on books. Styling your nightstand with items and decorations positioned together creates an eclectic and artful look.

The Perfect Nightstand for Your Home

The aesthetic of your bedside table is impacted by the quality of the table itself. With a wide selection of options, furniture engineered to last, and designs that bring sophistication to your home, Sugar House Furniture has the perfect nightstand for you. Visit our store in Salt Lake City or give us a call today.

When wood furniture is first created, it may look slightly different from how it looks after it has been used for many years. Wood is a living material, meaning that it will naturally age, change colors, and deteriorate over time. The type of wood used to craft your furniture will change how the color looks after use, sun exposure, or as stains begin to deteriorate. Understanding how hardwoods age can help you make a move informed choice about your furniture. Let’s look at how common wood types change as they age.

Cherry Wood

Cherry wood is known for its reddish undertones that appear pink when first cut. Over time, cherry develops a deeper and richer tone that can work for a variety of home types. Cherry wood provides more natural warmth to a space and is a sophisticated wood that fits well in modern designs or commercial settings. The deepening in color, also known as patination, adds more depth to the wood’s appearance. 

Placing items on the wood around your home could lead to uneven color development on cherry wood. Hanging frames, placing tablecloths, or leaving books in the same spot for extended periods of time can leave a darker box of color along your wood walls or furniture as the wood is exposed to the sun and air.

Oak

One wood type that has a more gradual color change is Oak. This wood type will develop a more distinctive grain pattern as time passes, as well as a warmer undertone. New oak pieces will look slightly yellow or beige, but over time, the tone will become more of a honey color. Red oak will adopt more of an amber color rather than a golden hue. 

Oak is a wood that wears well, which makes it suitable for many areas in a home or office that see frequent use. Scratches and dents will be less noticeable on oak furniture, but exposure to sunlight can speed up the color-changing element of natural wood. Oak furniture or walls will not have as dramatic a change compared to cherry wood.

Maple

Maple is a lighter colored wood that starts off almost white when cut. It provides a bright appearance for different furniture pieces or accents. As a maple piece ages, it will take on a warmer and golden tone, similar to other light wood types. Its grain pattern will also become more noticeable as time passes, giving the piece more depth and a more traditional aesthetic. As the grain pattern and color progress, maple becomes more appealing to a variety of customers. It is often referred to as a timeless wood that fits a number of home designs and style preferences. 

To avoid uneven coloring on maple wood, make sure to rotate the objects placed on top periodically and keep the furniture piece away from harsh UV exposure in one area. Although the sun can speed up the coloration process, maple is resistant to other damage, such as denting and scratching. Your piece will maintain a polished appearance for many years. 

Walnut

A warm, dark brown wood like walnut will continue to deepen with age. This is a wood that is truly timeless, as it will continue to develop and become more pronounced over the years. A honey color will start to appear all across the grain as the walnut ages, making the grain more prominent and typically making the wood look lighter. When we think of solid wood furniture, we typically notice walnut pieces. Most high-end furniture is crafted from walnut because of its durability and graceful aging.

Is There A Way To Stop How Hardwoods Age?

While it is not possible to completely stop wood aging, you can slow the process. The biggest accelerator of wood aging is sunlight, as it causes more oxidation, which leads to yellowing or color deepening. Homeowners can install UV protective film on windows, install sun-blocking curtains, or focus on rotating the furniture or objects on a wood surface frequently. 

Another way to slow down the aging process is to apply a top coat to your tables, chairs, or dressers. This coating will inhibit oxygen from directly touching the wood and will also keep dust and debris from settling on top of the item. This will limit not only discoloration but also minor scratches and abrasions. 

Hardwood Furniture From Our Craftsmen

Sugar House Furniture uses a variety of wood types to craft our furniture pieces, ensuring that they are durable and long-lasting for generations to come. Our family business is committed to sharing the beauty of solid wood furniture with our customers in Utah. Sugar House offers so many different pieces, sizes, colors, and designs that will appeal to all different personalities. View our products on our website or come to our in-person showroom to see what pieces will work best for your home.