Living Room Furniture Ideas

Living room furniture ideas. Can kids and beautiful things peacefully coexist? The answer is: Sometimes. But that doesn't mean you must live in a hovel until your youngest goes to college. You can still have beautiful things. Just choose and position them wisely.

These living room furniture ideas can help you choose the right pieces for your family and set limits on what can and can't be done on the furniture so you can keep what you have looking presentable. 

Living Room Furniture Ideas for Family Life

Choose kid- and pet-friendly furnishings with tough, stain-resistant upholstery. This will not be your White Period.

Establish rules about protecting what you do have. No feet on the furniture. No food outside the dining room—craft projects only in the kitchen.

Just because a place is kid-friendly doesn't mean it has to look like a playground or school cafeteria. 

Consider where you put things. You might want to relocate your precious Oriental rug to the dining room or bedroom for the next few years.

Or put it in an area where the kids are unlikely to congregate.

Living Room Furniture Ideas for Leather

Living room furniture ideas: Consider leather if you're buying sofas or chairs anytime soon. 

Leather is much easier to care for if you have kids. (And usually, where there are kids, there are pets.) If you spill on leather, you wipe it up. If you drop on chenille, you'd better catch it fast. Leather is also more rip-resistant, and it looks better longer.

Leather is also preferable for people with allergies because regular vacuuming easily removes dust from its surface. Keep your leather furniture at least 2 feet away from heat vents or other heat sources to preserve it. Don't expose leather furniture to direct sunlight, or it could dry out and crack. Wipe leather with a soft cloth each week.

Clean it with a gentle cleaning agent, such as liquid dish soap mixed in lukewarm water. Wipe, don't rub!

Living Room Furniture Ideas for Protecting Your Investment

Kids are rough on upholstered furniture. They put their shoes on the couch, jump on the chairs, pull off the loveseat pillows to make forms, and stash crumbs, pencils, quarters, etc., under the cushions to create a perpetual collection of odds and ends.

The good news is you can keep furniture beautiful. Here are some key ways to protect your furniture:

• Treat fabric with a fluorochemical solution to make it more stain-resistant. This invisible finish coats the material so that spills and dirt don't penetrate as quickly or easily. It's safe for most fabrics.
  

• Protect furniture from direct sunlight.

• Rotate and reverse cushions occasionally so they will fade evenly and receive equal wear.

• Vacuum furniture monthly with a soft brush attachment. 

Consider Your Display Items

Put out only what you truly love. Living areas are infamous final resting places for knickknacks, tchotchkes, whatnots, and other decorative junk.  Clutter is clutter, whether it's collectible Hummel figurines or garage-sale finds. 

Everyone has treasures, of course, and they do give a room personality and interest. But when you've got so much stuff that your eye cannot focus on any one thing, Mama, you have to cut back.

Organize items in eye-pleasing groupings of two or three objects. This works best if the items have a similar theme or if they provide contrasting textures, shapes, or colors.

Don't pack every inch of surface space. Items stand out when they have room to stand out. 

If you've got a lot of stuff you like, try rotating collections. Having fewer objects on display is not only more attractive, but it also makes dusting infinitely easier. (They call them dust catchers for nothing.)

And rotating collections will keep your living areas looking fresh.