The lounge, the sitting room, the parlour, the family room, the tv room, reception room; all names for the room in the house where we entertain guests or gather together to chat, read or watch TV. some people might be lucky enough to have seperate rooms for all of the above and would not therefore require a name specifically for the room they live in but for most people a living room is the minimum requirement, perhaps augmented by a dining room.

Growing up in the 1950s it was always the living room in our house and I had thought the term had probably gone out of fashion in favour of specific appellations like home cinema  or AV room. I was therefore surprised on checking the Options Furniture website statistics to discover that, along with kid’s rooms and children’s bedrooms, living room furniture and variations thereon was the most popular search term in August.

Certainly, we have seen a rise in enquiries and orders for bespoke fitted living room furniture this year. What is interesting is the broad variety of types of fitted furniture we are making for living rooms, ranging from ornate classical designs, through Arts and Crafts to austere, minimalist installations:

the range of specific component parts, such as drinks cabinets (used to be called cocktail cabinets), crockery cupboards, cutlery drawers, Hi Fi cabinets and housings for Sky boxes, free-view boxes and recorders, and the range of names that people give to this emerging market trend: Home-Cinemas, TV wall units, AV or Audio Visual cabinets, dressers.

The strengths of a truly bespoke furniture maker really come into play in this diverse and nascent market.  Fitted bedroom furniture is still the larger market but it only has a handful of basic component parts.  Of course there are endless permutations and many ranges of design and finish but 90% of the spend goes on wardrobes, chests of drawers and cabinets in one form or another and, up to a point, suppliers can, and do, get away with using standard size components and describing the product as bespoke or custom-made.

However, and in my experience, most fitted living room units are one-off designs resulting from a collaboration between the customer and the designer to produce a product that is truly unique.

Your living room should be anything you wish it to be and so should the furniture.