I’ve been hiding something from you for weeks.
It’s the fact that we ended up with three black sofas in our tiny family room and although it’s unorthodox, weird and breaking a few rules, we don’t hate it.
It all started with my big (actually only 80 inches) lady, black velvet sofa, it was the jumping off purchase for our family room redesign back in March and I love the sofa with all of my heart and plan on keeping it forever. It’s a custom piece from Cococo Home (highly recommend).
Then we found a pair of second-hand leather chairs on facebook marketplace and THEN I decided that the corner by the TV was really awkward and a single chair just wasn’t working for us there.
At first glance this is a cute pic with a pretty curvy chair but the reality was that the black table was the wrong size, two surfaces competed in this corner and the chair couldn’t figure out which way to face–the TV or the rest or the room. Spoiler, no one ever sat in this chair. Those who did, regretted it.
At this point the pandemic was in full force and there weren’t a lot of options so I was desperate and impatient and figured I’d buy a black loveseat from Ikea ‘just to see’ and at least have a returnable, visual idea of if we liked it. I admit, I usually am not a fan of loveseats–if there is any way you can fit a full size sofa or two–there is usually not a reason to get a loveseat, okay?
Well, even the loveseat was too big for the space, but with two of our three boys back home, they flocked to the extra seating and it was obvious that a loveseat was a great solution for this corner.
I decided to return the loveseat (yep Ikea lets you!) and order a custom loveseat from the same company that made my beloved sofa. Sadly, at the time, our Ikea wasn’t taking returns. So we had to hold onto the placeholder loveseat.
Meanwhile, weeks passed and our new, tiny loveseat arrived and it was the perfect fit for the TV corner. Also interesting the difference between a skirted bottom and legs–in this corner, legs allow more visual breathing room.
When you live in a small house, 10 inches on a piece of furniture, skirted vs legs can make a HUGE difference. Honestly, the biggest challenge in this house is the size of the rooms, and the lack of walls.
By the time our new loveseat arrived, we decided to keep the Ikea loveseat and put it in the barn. However, the barn had a leak this summer so we are currently doing some work on it so we decided to wait to put a new loveseat in there until it’s repaired so I moved the Ikea loveseat over to the table to get it out of the way.
Then, all of our boys were home for the weekend and two of them brought girlfriends and we all wanted to hang out together in the family room so I had the brilliant idea to move the Ikea loveseat back into the family room so we’d have extra seating.
That was last month and that is how we ended up with three black sofas in our family room. Did you ever think you’d read an entire essay about three black sofas?
Next week our oldest comes home from college for six weeks, our youngest has been home from college all semester and we’re going to have a full house of our grown men boys and occasionally their lady friends for the next two months.
I’m blaming the pandemic, but for now, we are living with three black sofas, one which is the wrong size and color, in our family room.
We’re breaking rules– like why is a sofa up against a dresser so much that the drawers can’t open?
The truth is, I’ve threatened to order another twin loveseat from The Cococo so at least everything is the right size and makes sense together, but I’m afraid this is just a temporary solution for a temporary issue.
Or is it?
Our family will only be getting larger through the years. But everyone won’t actually be living with us, so I’m struggling with figuring out how to prioritize comfy seating in a small room.
For now, this solution is serving us well, although there is ZERO room for a Christmas tree. I’ll let the family vote and decide–Christmas tree in a new place this year and keep all the comfy seating or move things around.
The only bit of space for our Christmas tree right now is in front of the double doors that lead out to the side porch. Great because it still feels close to the family room, bad because we’ll have to use the front door for porch access, but small house perk: it’s not that far away.
Maybe your Holiday Home is going to look different this year too.
Maybe you’ll have less people around to celebrate, or more people living with you for longer.
Maybe you’ll need less indoor gathering space and more outdoor ideas.
Maybe, like me you need to re-decide your Holiday Home Goal this year.
For us, our Holiday Home is all about Simplicity, Comfort and Joy–coming back to what we talked about in March (here’s a link if you need a quick refresher).
Here’s to your Holiday Home!
