How to seat the whole kampung in a small living room

A small living room doesn’t mean you need to have limited seating. If you often have the whole kampung over or you just like to have more choices for seating other than the couch, we have a few ideas that will help increase your seating capacity without cramping up your space.

1. Combine it with your TV console

A reading nook was elegantly incorporated into the design for the TV console, by edging out the slab of grey marble at the recessed area. When not used for seating, the space is used for displaying decor.

2. Carve out a cosy corner within the carpentry

Always wanted an alcove to curl up in? Create one within your built-ins. This cosy corner was carved from the full-height storage in the living room. An arched design softens the edges in the space while giving something for the eye to focus on.

3. Double up your coffee table

In small spaces, you’ll want furniture that is multifunctional to minimise the amount of furniture lying about. In this instance, this wooden coffee table doubles up as an extra seating bench in the event that there are guests around.

Besides benches, poufs will also work similarly as a coffee table or extra seating when needed.

4. Do up a platform

A platform helps to add more seating in a small living room by visually breaking up the space so the layout feels less awkward e.g. no under-utilised space in front of the sofa.

With the platform, you can throw in a couple of cushions, beanbags or zaisus (Japanese style legless floor chairs) and you’ve got a whole lot of extra seating options.

5. Make use of your bay window area

When thinking about extra seating, don’t neglect that space in front of your windows. Build a bay window bench (with added storage underneath for maximum functionality) and cover it with plenty of cushions for comfort.

6. Working from home in the living room? Consider office seats with rollers

If your workstation’s in the living room, get office chairs with castors that can be moved about easily whenever you need to accommodate more guests. Armless ones will also help to shave off unnecessary space.

Add more seating through a dining banquette

For living rooms that share the same space as the dining, you will want to make use of dining-area seating.

Arrange the two zones such that the dining area feels like part of the living room. A built-in dining banquette like the one below is a good option to squeeze a lot of people in without taking up too much space.

7. Create custom stools that can be concealed

Custom benches, made from the remaining materials used to construct the TV stand, are stowed away neatly within the storage compartments, taken out only when needed.

Not only is this a great way to use up leftover material (minimise wastage!), you also get matching seats that fit your exact storage dimensions.

This article was first published in Renonation.