Living rooms are the core of your entire home. This is where you fall at the end of a hard day at work, watch movies with your friends on the weekends, and spend Sunday mornings curled up with a book and a cup of coffee. In the center of all that comes the lounge in your house.
Getting a new couch is a major purchase you will have to make, whether financial or aesthetic.
But what people fail to understand is the fact that they keep falling into the same mistake over and over again—they see a great-looking design at the shop, get it delivered, and it either takes over their entire living room or looks too small in a too large living area.
Having a beautifully designed living room that functions well all heat down to scale and proportion. If right now you are standing in front of your empty room asking yourself, "what size of lounge for my room do I really need?" then don’t worry, because you’re not the only one.
In this large guide on selecting lounge size Australia, our experts at Half Price Furniture will provide you with all the important dimensions and layout guidelines that will help you make the perfect decision. From the smallest living room space to the largest family areas, this article will provide all the expert tips and tricks that you will need when shopping for your dream lounging furniture.
1. Understanding Scale and Visual Weight
Even before picking up your measuring tape, you first need to have an understanding of how your furniture behaves visually in a four-walled environment. The idea of size doesn’t only apply to how many centimeters of physical space an item occupies. It includes “visual weight.”
Visual weight refers to the heaviness of the item in terms of its visual appearance. For instance, think of a leather sofa with dark colors sitting low to the ground and having strong armrests.
Although, its smaller dimensions, it will give a room a strong, heavy atmosphere. On the other hand, imagine a lounge upgrade from the floor by thin legs made of metal or timber. Light can easily pass through it, creating a floating effect that greatly reduces its visual size, giving a sense of lots of space to the whole room.
When shopping for a new sofa, what matters most is to have something that meets your practical seating needs and adds the appropriate visual weight to your space. A light sofa can easily get lost in a huge space with high ceilings, whereas a heavy modular sofa can overpower a small space.
2. How to Measure Your Space the Right Way
The first step towards achieving this goal is measuring your room properly. You should not make any expectation about your measurements when looking at pictures online or remembering what the size was. Doing so would be a certain way to make a costly mistake.
Painter's Tape Hack
The best way to imagine yourself lounging in this chair in your living room is through the painter's tape hack. Search for the precise dimensions (length, depth, and height) of the sofa you are planning to buy.
Once you have found that information, purchase a blue painter's tape and create an outline of the furniture right on your floor. Do not remove the tape until you have had some time to walk around it, imagine yourself sitting on the couch, and observe how it will interfere with your everyday life.
Measuring the Walking Areas
There must be enough space left within the room to allow you to navigate through your room without feeling constrained to move your body sideways or banging your knee against something. The best rule of thumb while furnishing your room is to make sure that there is 90 cm of walking space between the lounge and any object blocking your path.
Checking Doorways and Corridors
One of the saddest times following the purchase of a couch would be bringing it home only to realize that it does not fit within the door or corridor. Prior to making the purchase, measure all possible corridors, doors, staircases, and elevators that are involved in transporting the couch to its final destination.
For even more detailed ideas on how to position your new furniture perfectly, check out our dedicated guide on Choosing the Right Size Lounge for Your Living Area.
3. The Best Lounge for Small Living Room Spaces
Furnishing a tiny apartment or townhouse involves a lot of thought and planning. In such situations, where every inch matters, you need to use your head when it comes to picking out the form and style of your furniture pieces.
To learn the secrets behind furnishing small living rooms, let me tell you that the main rule here is to expose the floor. Opt for sofas with exposed feet that allow you to see the floor below the furniture. Your brain will perceive the room to be much bigger than it is thanks to the visual illusion of a free floor surface.
Another important detail you should pay attention to when furnishing a small living room is the armrests. You need to choose a sofa with thin armrests since oversized padded ones can take up to 30 centimeters on either side of your couch, which amounts to 60 centimeters of unusable floor space.
It is a great idea to consider a two seater lounge or even a slightly bigger one that accommodates 2.5 seats for smaller living rooms. Rather than opting for a big, bulky loveseat, go for an easily mobile accent chair to provide seating flexibility in case you want to clear some floor space.
4. Furnishing Large and Open-Plan Areas
When you get the fortune of having such an extremely large living area, then a completely new set of challenges lies ahead. In a large room, smaller furniture looks out of place, disconnected, and uncomfortable. What you need to do here is create some kind of anchor point which could define a cozy corner for relaxation.
The room you are decorating is the perfect place to accommodate huge luxury modular sofas or L-shaped sectionals. Such pieces of furniture not only help consume all the space that was lying wasted on the floor, but also offer sufficient seating space for larger families.
In an open-plan home where living, dining, and kitchen areas share one giant footprint , there is an effective way to use your big lounge to partition the space into two zones. Rather than aligning your sofa against the wall of the room, you can float the sofa in the middle, allowing the backrest part of the sofa to form a visual barrier between the television watching zone and dining area.
5. Spotlight: The Perfect Fit with the Lincoln Lounge
If you are searching for something which is both stylish and practical, offering the right amount of comfort and style at once, then it is the Lincoln Lounge that should be recommended to you.
This piece of art is one of the most beautiful examples of modern furniture out there. Its streamlined silhouette offers comfortable seating in ample quantities without seeming too big or bulky. With clean lines and tailored upholstery, this furniture will add a touch of class to any room, regardless of whether it is a medium-sized family home or an extra large living room.
The beauty of the Lincoln Lounge is that it fits easily into almost any type of interior. From Australian contemporary to urban simple style, the piece combines flawlessly with all these interior types. At the same time, the couch offers excellent support for cozy movies.
6. Color and Fabric: How They Change Perceived Size
It’s not only about the measurements – the fabric color affects the perception of the sofa’s size as well.
When dealing with dark colors, for example, intense charcoal gray, navy blue or dark chocolate, it’s important to understand that this color absorbs light, making the furniture look visually heavy and somewhat bigger. In the case of a small and dark room, a big sofa will create a gloomy feeling like that of a cave, but in a bright sunlit one with large windows, the dark sofa will create a beautiful contrast.
On the other hand, pastel tones such as cream, light grey, beige or soft sage green reflect light all over the room. The light-colored sofa appears to be light, fresh and slightly smaller than it really is. This way, in order to pick the most fitting lounge suite for small living rooms, light colored furniture would be the right choice.
When choosing fabric for the sofa, it’s also necessary to pay attention to the texture of the material, as the heavier it is, the bigger sofa will appear.
7. Coordinating Your Lounge with Other Furniture
However, your lounge cannot just exist by itself; it needs to work in harmony with your coffee table, rug, and television unit. Making sure that there is proper balance in terms of proportionality between these furnishings is absolutely critical to achieving the best results possible.
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Coffee Table: Your coffee table should be around two-thirds the size of your lounge. For instance, if you have a lounge measuring 210 centimeters, then your coffee table should measure around 140 centimeters. When placing your coffee table, make sure it is around 45 centimeters from the edge of your lounge seat. This will leave enough space for you to rest your feet while keeping your beverage close.
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Area Rug: People usually go wrong by picking a rug that is much too small. The rug that you get must be large enough to accommodate the first two legs of your lounge. This unites the seating into an island of sorts.
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Side Table: When placing a side table adjacent to the arm rests of your lounge, make sure that the side table is around the same height as your lounge.
8. Common Sizing Mistakes to Avoid
In determining the right size of the lounge for my room, it is also important to consider some of the common errors made by consumers. Avoiding these common errors will help guarantee your lounge is placed in the best possible way. Do not make the following common mistakes:
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Neglecting the Height of Your Ceilings
If you have ceilings that are very low, purchasing a sofa that has extremely high back rest will make your room appear small and cramped. Purchase a lounge that has a relatively low profile to give your room a more spacious appearance. If you have ceilings that rise double high, a low sofa will make your room appear small. Therefore, it is a smart choice to purchase a lounge that has high backs.
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Failure to Consider the Space Needed When The Sofa is Leaning
If you are purchasing a lounge that reclines, make sure there is enough space for the lounge to recline. Most consumers measure the lounge in its upright position but forget about the extra space required once it reclines.
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Crowding Your Room
The fact that a huge six-person modular chair will actually fit within your room dimensions is not an indication for purchase. Rooms require empty space. If all your furniture is placed right up against the walls of the room, with barely any room left to move around, the house will feel extremely suffocating to live in.
9. Finding Your Match at Half Price Furniture
The principles of lounge furniture size selection in Australia make it possible to create a house which seems to be taken from the pages of some magazine. Paying attention to the way the passage through your rooms looks, picking the right visual weight and marking the footprint of your furniture by using tape, you can buy lounge furniture with 100 percent surety.
Here at Half Price Furniture we understand that each house is unique. That is why we provide the widest variety of models, shapes, sizes and designs for all the budgets and tastes. Regardless whether you need a smooth two-seater or a family-size modular lounge, whatever your interior style may be – at Half Price Furniture you will get exactly what you were looking for!
Half Price Furniture takes pride in its ability to provide designer-quality lounges at very affordable prices.
Are you ready to make a change? Do you want to make an ideal living room? Then it's time to visit our collection of lounge furniture! Find your dream lounge online!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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What is the best lounge size for my room if my room measures 3x3 meters?
For rooms that are just 3x3 meters, the perfect furniture choice is either a 2-seater or a 2.5-seater. Ideally, it should be something like a lounge that's 150cm-180cm wide so you can sit comfortably but also leave some room for a small coffee table and about 90cm pathway to move around in.
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What would be the ideal lounge for small living room spaces?
If the space is limited, then sofas with exposed, raised legs and armrests should be your choice since they won't look bulky, and will reveal the floor space to make it seem bigger. A good idea is to choose a love seat and armchair combo rather than a chunky dark-colored sectional sofa.
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How do I go about choosing lounge size Australia for my open-plan home?
When furnishing an open-plan home in Australia, it's important that the furniture helps define different areas within it. A big sofa shaped in an L or U form will work wonders when placed in the center of the room. Here, the back part of the sofa becomes an actual dividing line between your TV zone and dining room/kitchen. -
What spacing should I have between the lounge and the TV set?
This will depend on the dimensions of your TV set. As a general rule of thumb, make sure that you situate yourself between 1.5 to 2.5 times the size of your screen’s diagonal. Additionally, always remember to leave at least 90cm clearance space between the coffee table and the TV set. -
Is it a good idea to invest in modular lounges in a small apartment?
Generally, large-sized modulars would be too large to fit into a small apartment and would obstruct any walkway, look for brands that offer compact versions of modular lounges with reversible chaises. If you insist on having a chaise, go for one with narrow dimensions and exposed legs.
