Picking your sofa is one of the most important home choices you'll make!

In terms of choosing furniture in your home, picking out your dream sofa is up there with the most important. I’d say it’s probably the second most important behind choosing your bed (you spend more time in your bed!).

There are plenty of factors to take in to consideration such as colour and style to make sure it fits in with your living rooms colour scheme. You also have to pick a fabric that you will enjoy spending time on! Leather is often a popular choice due to its stylish appearance and the fact that it is usually easy to mop up those pesky drops and spills on leather. 

Fabric sofas on the other hand can be very, very comfy; often more cosy than their leather counterparts.
However, any drops or spills on these types of sofas are stuff of nightmares. A spillage on a fabric sofa needs immediate attention with a damp cloth.

The most conventional style sofas bought are straight up 2 and 3 seater sofas, sometimes with an additional single armchair, but in the last couple of years, corner sofas have become increasingly popular and the trendy or in thing to have in your living room.

Corner sofas are great because they come in any colour or fabrics you want or can come in just about any size you want from 3 seats to say 6, 7 or more! When space is limited, a good choice of corner sofa can make your living room look much more spacious but still over you 3 or 4 seats minimum. On the other hand, if you have lots of space, a large corner group can help fill some of the space, and rein it in a bit.

A new corner sofa can start from as little as a few hundred pounds, all the way up to thousands of pounds from your local sofa store or an online retailer. You can also pick up great bargains on the second hand market on such sites as EBay and Gumtree.

(The above sofas are part of Sterling Furniture's wide range of corner sofas sold online)

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DIY v Interior Designer?

So you decided to take the leap and have made your mind up.  Time to redecorate!  So who should do it?  Should you hire an interior design company or should you go it alone?  Well we found this little infograph that may just help, it weighs up the pros and cons whether or not to hire someone to help or to wade into the world of interior design on your own.

Whilst mainly targeted to the American market the values still apply the same and covers everything.  We hope you enjoy!

Browse more infographics.

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Our 9 top colour tips to brighten up the house for Christmas

Are you thinking about sprucing the place up a bit for the festive season? Well before you break out the pasting table and overalls, have a look and our handy colour guide. We’ve created a list of the colours we feel can make the biggest impact and even change the feel of a room without costing a fortune.

Red - Given the time of year there is literally no colour more festive than red, and even though it is synonymous with Christmas it will remain in style throughout the year.

Yellow - What a colour; yellow to me just screams happiness and vibrancy its and excellent colour for a kitchen, especially since you can coordinate your new cookware with just about any colour these days . However I would also suggest toning it down a bit with white or wood furniture and fittings.

Blue - Is a fantastic colour and one I’ve actually opted to use on my front door, I feel it gives my house a sense of fun and helps it stand out from the others on my street.

Pink - A fantastic and often underused colour (well, it’s certainly underused in a stylish way), pink is great for creating a nice calming room and is especially relaxing when paired with an extra comfy living room sofa and is best used in muted shades to avoid looking garish..

Grey - Is going to be a big colour in 2012 thanks to its neutral properties and ability to go with just about anything. With the right furniture and accessories grey can provide a very classy and upmarket feel.

Purple - Warning: Not for the faint hearted. Purple is a great colour for spicing up your home but should definitely be tested first before you go painting a whole room that colour. However for those of you that have a bit of a wild side this is a really fun colour to jazz up any room in the house.

Chocolate - This colour can split opinion but I think it’s a great colour as in the right shade its neutral and cosy. However it does rely on the right accessories like cushions and lighting to tie it all together.

Terracotta - This is my favourite colour for bathrooms as it is a clean colour without feeling too clinical and it.

I hope this guide helps with festive decorating, please feel free to send us in your recommendations and photos if you tried any out.

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Simple design in the living room

After my last post on Copenhagen Design Week, I've been thinking about how to incorporate some great functional design into my living room.

Danish designers have got it so right, and I think the simplicity of such clean design is missing in a lot of living rooms - especially mine right now. Naturally, the living room is where a lot of time spent - so we usually need to incorporate several parts of life into the interior design of one room. But what most of us forget is that it doesn't have to be fussy to be functional and nice to look at. Just because you want to relax and watch TV there every night, doesn't mean you need a sofa with a hundred pillows on it. And impressing guests isn't neccesarily going to be done with a highly patterned carpet.

If anything, the living room should be kept more simple than ever, to accomodate the wide range of activities that may have to take place there - from socialising to relaxing, from eating a meal to playing with the children of the family.

It's a sofa I need right now, and it's hard to draw myself away from the big squishy designs that you could sink into and never get back up. But I know that what I really want is something well made, simple and classic. Luckily most sofa retailers have caught on to the trend for simple and clean design - which should make things easier. I've been looking at some simple black and white designs and plan to keep the rest of the living room just as simple. Just need to stay away from the pillow section now.

What do you think of simple design in the living room? Should it be kept clean and minamilist or cosy and cluttered?

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Copenhagen Design Week

At the start of this month the Copenhagen Design Week took place - a whole week of talks and presentation featuring mostly Scandinavian design.

As a big fan of Scandinavian furniture design, I was extremely dissapointed that I couldn't go - and geography kept us apart. But luckily some feedback from the events gave me the chance to learn about some great new designers - and I got some great ideas for my living room, which I am currently redorating (when am I not). Here are some of the things I wish I'd managed to get too.

Four Design - clean lines at their best, this event showcased the work of Christina Strand and Niels Hvass, personal favourites of mine.

Interstuhl - Are you passionate about chairs? I am - and so are the people behind interstuhl, which means a passion for chairs. The designers behind these chairs drew inspiration for the chairs from international trips, and that's exactly what I love about design: it's functional art in everyday life.

We:Do:Wood - Scandinavian design largely revolves around the use of high quality wood, so I think this event would have been at the top of my list, with the up and coming Danish furniture designers behind the event discussing to mix functionality with beauty and susainability.

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The Search for A New Couch

It may sound easy - but searching for a new sofa is a lot more difficult than it looks.

As the focal point of any contemporary living room, a couch needs to tie together comfort, style, usability and durability - as well as being the right size and shape for the room it is going to be placed in.

Yes, sofas have a number of standards to meet -and we haven't even discussed the price yet. Many sofa stores run promotions all year round, so great bargains are out there. However, you must avoid shopping without a target purchase. Most sale purchases are made on an impluse. And unlike shopping in a clothes sales, it is a little harder to hide an unused sofa at the back of the wardrobe and pretend you will use it one day.

The best way to avoid price problems is to browse online first - the computer gives you distance. Make a list of the sofas you like without taking the price into account. Then set yourself a strict budget and do not go over it. This means when you get to the sofa stores you can choose a style you really like without going over your budget or (and this is the part you should really be careful about) buying something unsuitable just because it saves you some money.


Sofas not only say alot about your personal style, they are an important part of what makes a home a home - so it is worth some serious thinking time.

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Shining a Light on the Effects of Wall Lamps

Shamefully, lighting used to be the last thing most people thought about when decorating their living room.

I have to admit I have done it myself - choosing colourschemes, couches and carpets used to seem far more interesting. Matching lampshades and a couple of table lamps could be found after the job was complete.

But my eyes are open now -lighting can set the tone for an entire room on its own. Take these wall lights for example. Not only can they give the room a pleasant glow somewhere between glaring light and the dull glow of a lamp - they add a modern focal point to the room and add a hint of interest to plain coloured walls.

They aren't too expensive either, so a brilliant way to update a room for cheap. This has kicked off something of a lighting project, as I'm now going to experiment with other ways wall lamps can enhance a room - you could say I've seen the light.

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Chairs and more - furniture you can relax in

When you think about chair design, there's actually a whole lot more to the discipline than simply the aesthetics of it. Think of the classic Eames designs - so much went into them that it's impossible to separate the love of design from the love the actual concept of the chair itself - and what you get is the confluence of the ergonomic, teh aesthetic, the physical, and beyond the physical - the construction of an object that almost disappears when it's being used.

Think of all the different types of seating and soon it becomes apparent that this is an area of design that's ubiquitous - from municipal parks to space stations. Although when in space the gravity's not a concern, and makes the design rules change more than a little...

Of course, an original Eames would be a collector item now. But there's still plenty of great design available these days that utilise the same level of design smarts to maximise the comfort of the user - relaxateeze recliners such as this one most definitely please the eye as well as give the kind of chair comfort this side of space.

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Living room themes

It's time to think about living room themes.

How about the following - this is just to help get ideas, you understand. It's not a command:

James Bond

Mexican

Gothic

Edwardian

Space age

Psychedelic

Shaker

Zen

Japan

1960s East London Nightclub

It would be fun (but a bit time consuming) to post links to items that would help build these themes. So I'll leave it to your imaginasheeyun.

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Living room furniture wih style: the Union Jack couch

How good is this sofa?




It's a classic design but with a modern feel, and the Union Flag design is pretty cool - I bet Noel Gallagher wishes he could have had one of these back in the Supernova Heights days. If you go looking at furniture online there's a lot of stuff like this that really is a bit different. Think I'd like to see a Welsh flag sofa at some point too.

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Warm rooms in winter

It's been cold the past few nights, ain't it? Bleedin' Baltic guvner. There is little that contemporary living room design can do to help you stay warm - that's the job of the plumber, the cavity wall insulation people, etc.

But there are at least ways to make a room have a sense of warmth. Big rugs, thick curtains, soft lighting. Winter's not really the time for ultraminimalism - you don't want the room looking like the inside of an igloo.

For that extra warm touch you can even buy a DVD that makes your TV emulate a fireplace.

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Lotus Leaf Left

Am loving the Lotus Leaf Left - (£75, Sterling)

It's always difficult to choose actual pictures to hang on a wall. For instance I like a lot of Damien Hirst and Van Gogh skull paintings, but that's not the kind of thing that lights up a room with its cheeriness.

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Furniture and the lottery jackpot.

Every week it's the same. You buy the lottery ticket, and rather than it being the ticket to riches, it's really just a ticket to a few dreams about what you'd do with the riches, until of course the wrong numbers emerge from the machine.

In terms of how a lottery win would affect my living room, I think the first things would be a) a massive television - one of those ones you see in the shop that looks about the size of half a wall then b) a large sofa, or more accurately - large sofas, and finally c) some tropical fish.

Other essentials would be:

A Lebowski style persian rug (the more expensive the better)

Some LED lights to make the place look more space age.

And I think that's about it. Maybe a modern art picture on the wall (not the wall that the tv's on, obvs, but the adjacent wall)

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How much to spend on furniture?

Some people are a bit snobby when it comes to cheap furniture. But the amount spent on stuff isn't really the most important thing - it's how it looks and how long you want it to last.

Some pieces might cost literally thousands and be worth every penny, especially if it's a durable handed down through the generations type of item like a dining room table or a sideboard. But items like that are few in the modern house.

I think the thing is to be yourself and to strike a balance between the ephemeral and the not so ephemeral. I say there's nothing wrong with putting a £5 lamp onto a £650 table.

With so much choice these days though, it's a wonder we don't get bored of anything after a few weeks. If I was a designer I think I'd be working on pieces of furniture that change by themselves. Hmm, maybe not designer then, but scientist? It's only a matter of time...

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Sofa Settee Couch???

There's more than one word for that oblong three seater relaxation station in your living room. In much the same manner as the "tomayto/ tomato' song, each of these words is perfectly acceptable, but one's got to be more correct than the others, right?

Well, using some detective skills (sorry, search engine skills) I've been able to make the following elementary observations:

Settee - refers originally to a bench, later came to be the term for a small sofa. Presumably the old-fashioned type with the twirly legs and hardly any padding, like what you'd see in a stately home.

Couch - generic North American term for sofa. In the UK, the term refers specifically to a chaise-longue type sofa, meant for lying down on [the word couch derives from the French word for 'bed']

Sofa - so far, so good. Sofa is the catch-all term that describes the types of furniture above, but is probably the most widely used term in the UK for your settee/couch/ whatever it's called.

Anyway, nomenclature aside, it's probably a good time to start thinkin about investing in a new leather sofa since VAT is going to rise to an eye-watering 20% come 2011.

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I saw the light

The title for this post comes from the Todd Rundgren song of the same name. (Check it out - it's a great song).

Anyway, in a break from this blog's traditional subject matter, I want to talk to you to today about lighting. Most of us just make do with a couple of wall lights or maybe (at a push) an overhead light in our living space, powered by a standard 40- or 60-watt bayonet cap bulb, throwing an unflattering light over everything including ourselves.

Not being a fan of harsh light, I some time ago began to seek more ambient lighting options. bright light has its place, of course (the noon sky on a clear day, Boots The Chemists, the dentist's table) but for a relaxing evening at home, nothing beats soft light from the right sources. By 'the right sources' I mean whatever suits in situ - you can have a lot of fun trying out various options, most of them not too expensive. Wall lights, uplighters, standard lamps, even candles can be placed strategically in order to get the feel of light you want. (Be mega careful with candles though for obvious reasons of fire safety!).

My preferred volume of light is low, with directional lights for reading. You can even get standalone uplighters with a built-in directional light - both types of light in one unit. And with the advent of good quality low energy and long life bulbs, the days of low energy meaning watery light source are now thankfully over.

One new type of light that has begun to appear lately is the multicoloured LED lighting strip. As integral lighting goes, it's very slightly offbeat, and definitely worth investigation. Still a bit on the pricey side, but worth it for the effect you get.

Here's a video of some home LED lights in use:

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Cool TV stands

Save for a few choice programmes, i have to say i don't watch a whole bunch of telly these days. Those that I will admit to watching are:

Newsnight
Top Gear
Question Time
re-runs of The Sweeney
Masterchef

And that's about it. So my concern isn't so much 'what's on television?' so much as 'what's the television on?' as in, 'where does the television get put?'. That's actually more of a pressing concern these days than it used to be, what with the giant size of most modern televisions compared with the models of yesteryear, when even a 28" CRT was considered a monster telly. I mean, these days, that's doubled in size - check out this amazing new widescreen cinema ratio television

So, you need something safe and secure for your television. Also it needs to be a unit that you feel matches the set and your surroundings. (NB don't just attach TV to the wall, it makes the room look like a school classroom) For a modern vibe, there's plenty of choice available at your local leather furniture store and online. All you need now is something to watch. Or a new DVD box set!

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100% Design

Later on this year London's 100% Design event will be taking place at Earls Court. This is sure to be the place to find all the newest ideas in all the facets of design and interior design.

There will be many top designers exhibiting their ideas and wares, from quality furniture design to innovations in fixtures and fittings, wallcoverings everything.

The Exhibition runs from the 23rd to the 26th of September in central London and will be the only place to mingle, network [even schmooze] in order to find what will be the next big thing in design.

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Choosing the Right Coffee Table

In many ways the coffee table [and sometimes what you put on it] can be the centre of your whole living room. Often the most comfortable sofas and recliners all face on to the coffee table.

If you want to be sure that the coffee table in your home is enhancing your environment then you will have to compare and contrast many of the different styles that are available, taking into consideration your current [and perhaps future] furniture as well as the other existing decor.

A common policy [because it is so stylish] is the glass topped coffee table as seen in homes across the land.

My own favourits are those with the smoked glass and steel edged finish as it gives a certain modern vibe in my opinion I like this one by Milan.



But if your house has more of the old fashioned feel then you may have to go for something more along the lines of oak, or at least some wood effect.



In any case it is your choice, but remember to choose carefully!

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Return To Your Childhood!

The Den Bed

Do you remember the time as a youngster when you used to build a den in the bedroom with the covers so no one could find you? Well don't worry adults because heres your very on to take you back to your childhood days!

Let me know what you think of this fantastic looking bed and wither you would ever stick this in your room? Probably more of a guys bed since guys are known to be big kids anyway, or maybe you just like the style of it?

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