Analyzing Your Space: Elements in the Living Room

Elements in Your Living Room - Is your space for you?

If only a pair of glasses existed that was labeled “objective glasses” and once and for all we could see our space, our home clearly as others see it.  Let’s face it; our home is one of the hardest spaces in which to be objective.  Day after day, we see the mail piling up, we witness our children filling the floor with puzzles, baby doll clothes, and Thomas trains and we observe the sofa cushions that are beginning to sag with age, but within the grand scheme of things they all seem par for the course.  We could remedy these situations, but we learn to live with them and accept them.  However, through objective questioning, we can all temporarily borrow a pair of “objective glasses” and analyze our home spaces to better our day to day lives.

What is in your floor?

Working from the ground up, what items tend to hit your floor faster than anything else?  What stains appear quicker?  What items are taking up the most space?  Each of these objective questions helps you to realize the basics of what is literally in your floor.

Where do you sit?

Living rooms are meant for comfortable relaxation.  Is your seating comfortable?  Do you have enough seating?  How old is the seating in your living room?  Does everything fit well in your room?  If you cannot sit well, then the living room is not serving its function.

What do you do in the living room?

The living room is a room with many purposes and many activities occur within its borders.  What happens in your living room?  Are there any activities, such as a lively game of kick ball, that are not supposed to happen in this room?  Are you able to do everything in your living room that you would like to be able to do?  Does something need to change to allow you and your family to use the room more fully?  Just because something has always been a certain way, does not mean that it needs to continue.  Objective questions allow you to reevaluate the normal way of doing things and to find superior ways of living life.

What doesn’t belong?

What in your living room should not be taking up space?  What furniture pieces are simply filling the room and not serving a purpose?  What decorative items no longer make the room feel better, but instead more crowded?  What items are in the room for the sake of an activity that is no longer completed in the living room?  Consider this the editing stage.  Just like extra words need to be chopped out of a document, so extra decor and furniture need to be taken from a room to provide room for more decorative and more beneficial pieces.

Reaching Your . . . Objective

If you have an objective to be objective, then you have to be willing to put away feelings of attachment to home decor and furniture that have been a part of the life of the family for some time.  Home decor and furniture are there to serve a purpose; contrary to popular belief, these items are not extended family!  The moment these items stop serving their purpose, ties need to be severed.  Even if it means parting with furniture that has been in the household since college dorm days or since having your first child, you future life has no space for furniture and decor that no longer serve a function.

I hope you have enjoyed borrowing a pair of “objective glasses” while reading this blog.  I love sharing about interior design in the hopes that your home life will be bettered even in the slightest.  Feel free to submit a question for my “Tuesday: Ask an Interior Designer” blog!  This is a great way to receive objective home advice for a small question, but if you have need of more extensive design advice check out my Interior Design site www.designinglife.weebly.com to schedule a Skype session.