It’s Time to Stop Arranging Furniture Around the TV
As TVs have gotten bigger and more complex in their fairly young lives, our living rooms have evolved into in-person viewing rooms. But as interesting as TVs are, you may find that they can be quite distracting when you have guests over. If you’ve ever thrown a party and your guests spend most of their time in your house watching your TV, you know the problem: TVs can interfere with conversation and other meaningful personal interactions.
In other words, it’s time to stop arranging the living room around the TV: a people-centric layout will encourage more communication and better connection with people.
TV call
In an ideal world, we would all have separate living rooms and TVs or family rooms, but many of us don’t have that luxury. If your house has only one place where people can gather and relax, you may not be able to just give up the TV. But you can downplay it, at least when you have guests:
- Hide. One option is to hide the TV when not in use. This can be done by placing the TV on a stand or in an entertainment center with a sliding panel or door that can be unfolded when you want to hide it. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want (and can afford), including buying or building a cabinet that the TV can lower and raise as needed.
- Disguise it. Another option is to hide the TV in plain sight, making it a work of art. You can go the easy route by purchasing a Frame TV , but you can also build your own frame-style TV without too much trouble. This way, you can make your TV the center of attention in the room, while still encouraging conversation as you wish.
- Off center. Finally, if you don’t just make the TV the center of attention in the room, it will encourage other activities when people come over. Having the TV on the side of the entertainment center or hanging on the side of the wall will make it easier to ignore when you want something other than Netflix binge.
Alternative Focal Points
Look, if the room is dominated by a huge TV, people will watch it even if it’s turned off . It’s just human nature. If you want the room to be more people oriented, give people something to look at other than the TV – an alternative focus.
The most obvious choice for an alternate focal point is a painting, sculpture, or other piece of art. But in fact, it can be anything, as long as it attracts attention and inspires conversation. The fireplace, if you have one, is a built-in trick that you can take advantage of by simply not mounting a TV above it. You can install multiple pieces of art to create a gallery wall. You can use a large mirror as a focal point or as a window. You can even use a large potted plant or an exotic lamp. A focal point can literally be anything visually stimulating that you focus on in a room. Just don’t make it a TV and you’ve already won the battle for people’s attention.
Encourage conversation
The final piece of the puzzle when it comes to turning your living room into a space for people is creating an atmosphere that encourages conversation and personal interaction rather than watching TV. The goal is to create “talking circles”, seating areas where two or more people can easily talk while sitting comfortably. This encourages not only group interaction, but more intimate interactions that are independent of the larger group.
Ideally, your social circles should overlap a little so that people can switch from one subgroup to another at will. Imagine a room with a large sofa and several smaller chairs or sofas on the sides – you can talk to someone on your right and then turn around and start a conversation on your left.
There are a few things to consider here:
- Movable furniture. If your room is to double function as both a TV room and a meeting place, furnishing it with items that can be easily moved and rearranged may be the ideal solution. These can include chairs, tables, and sofas on wheels, but it can also mean ditching the large sofa and installing smaller chairs in the room that can be easily lifted and moved around. This way, you can focus on the TV when it’s time to watch a show with the family, and then easily form a few conversation circles when it’s time to party.
- Facing furniture. If you want to make a powerful statement about encouraging conversation in your living room, arrange the furniture so it faces itself. This could mean two sofas on opposite sides of a coffee table, a sofa opposite comfortable chairs, or an angled arrangement of these chairs to one side. The goal here is to have everyone looking at each other and not at the TV screen.
- Furniture with a low back. If your TV is the center of attention in the room and you don’t want to change it, consider placing low back chairs or a bench in front of the TV opposite the other seating areas. That way, you’ll have an unobstructed view of the screen when it’s movie night, but other people will be the center of attention when you have guests, and there’s no need to rearrange the furniture.
If all you ever did in your living room was watch TV, then by all means, make it the centerpiece of the space and get comfortable. But if you want to be the kind of person who hosts memorable meetings and personal conversations, consider arranging in a way that puts more emphasis on people.