Your living room is a hub of activity: where you spend time hanging out and watching TV, spending time with family, and entertaining guests. And if you have a small living room and often entertain, you probably know the struggle of keeping your space feeling open while having enough seating to accommodate everyone. Try some of these design tips to really maximize the use of your small living room!

1) Choose smaller furniture

If you have a small living room, don’t go out and buy the largest sectional you can find. Try to keep furniture more compact and less bulky. This doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the number of seats, just make sure you’re choosing more streamlined furniture that takes up less room.

2) Take advantage of wall space

One of the keys to designing a small space is to draw the eye upward. Whether or not you have high ceilings in your living room, you can still do this and make your room feel larger and grander. Fill the walls with a collection of framed pictures and paintings to draw your guest's eyes upward and create the illusion of more space.

3) Fill a corner

This probably sounds like the last thing you want to do in a small room, but small corner living spaces sometimes feel bigger with a large piece of furniture in them. A sectional with clean lines can work well in a small space because it is one piece, making the room feel less cluttered. It will also allow you to seat lots of guests.

4) Install a wall of storage

If your small living room features a spattering of furniture for storage, spread out here and there, consider devoting an entire wall to storage instead. You can install a full floor-to-ceiling entertainment centre or bookshelf which will take up less space in the grand scheme of your living room.

At Smitty’s Fine Furniture in Kitchener and Hanover, we have a large selection of sectionals, storage solutions and other furniture to help you maximize the use of your small living space. Visit us at one of our locations to see our selection!