Living Room

A living room does several things at once: seating, somewhere to put a cup down, somewhere for the television, and storage for what would otherwise be on the floor. The seven shelves here map onto those jobs rather than onto a style, and they are not evenly sized — eight coffee tables, five display cabinets, five side & nest tables, four bookcases & shelving, four console tables, four sideboards and four tv units. The useful question is which job the room is short of, not which piece is missing from a set: a room with enough seating and nowhere to put a lamp needs a side table, not a suite.

Pieces here run from 34 cm to 195 cm tall — a spread of 161 cm, and the widest of any category on the site. That is the difference between a coffee table you look over and a bookcase you look up at, both on the same shelf list. Height decides whether a room feels open or crowded, and it is the measurement most people never take. Keeping the tall pieces to one or two walls, and the rest of the room low, gives the eye somewhere to rest. Depths run 18–60 cm and widths 50–160 cm. 29 of the 34 give width, depth and height on the product page; five state fewer, and show what is known rather than an assumed figure.

Living-room furniture goes against a wall, into an alcove or under a window, and each of those has a limit the product page cannot know. Measure the wall at skirting height as well as at waist height: skirting boards, radiators and pipe boxing all steal depth at the bottom, which is exactly where a 60 cm-deep sideboard meets them. For an alcove, measure the narrowest point rather than the opening and take a centimetre or two off — a piece that fits exactly is a piece you cannot get in. Leave room to stand and open a door or drawer, not just to walk past. Under a window, check the height against the sill.

Twelve of the 34 are wood and five solid oak, where the colour runs through the material rather than sitting on a veneered surface. Nine use glass — the highest proportion of any category here, and the reason is that living-room pieces are often asked to hold things without visually filling the room, which is exactly what glass does. Seven carry a high-gloss finish. Gloss bounces light back into a room that may not get much of it, and shows fingerprints and dust in a way a matt finish does not; both of those are worth knowing before choosing rather than after. Each product page states the material and finish for that specific piece.

There are 26 named ranges in this category, and eighteen pieces belong to a range that also appears on another shelf, so a coffee table and a TV unit can be genuinely the same design rather than approximately the same colour. Acorn is the widest: pieces under that name appear across thirteen shelves, including bedroom furniture. Matching everything is one valid choice and rarely the most interesting one. Mixing works when the pieces agree about something — height, or timber tone, or the weight of the frame — and looks accidental when they agree about nothing. If you want to mix, the range name on each product page tells you what is genuinely related.

23 of the 28 pieces that state an assembly type are flat-packed for home assembly and five arrive assembled; six do not state one, and their product pages say so rather than guessing. 24 arrive in a single carton, nine in two and one in three. Carton weights run from 7.9 kg to 72 kg. At the top of that range this is a two-person lift and the route in wants clearing first — the same measurement that decides whether a piece fits the wall decides whether it gets to the wall. A piece that arrives assembled cannot be brought in flat, so for those the doorway matters more than the carton count.

Each holds a different job in the room.

• Coffee Tables 9 pieces
• Display Cabinets 6 pieces
• Side & Nest Tables 6 pieces
• Bookcases & Shelving 8 pieces
• Console Tables 7 pieces
• Sideboards 8 pieces
• TV Units 4 pieces