Menu

  • Home
  • Garden
    • Big Gardens
    • Small Gardens
    • Vegetables and Herbs
    • Yard and Backyard
    • Gardening Tips
    • Ornamental Plants
    • Indoor Plants
  • Home Design
    • Living Room
    • Kids Room
    • Bedroom
    • Home Office
    • Kitchen
    • Bathroom
    • Home Decor
    • Architecture and Design
    • All About Home
  • Interesting
    • Positive Stories
    • Interesting News
    • Stories Behind the Photographs
    • Odd News
  • Health & Beauty
    • Hairstyles
    • Makeup
    • Diet
    • Lifestyle & Mental Health
    • Fitness & Weight Loss
    • Beauty Tips
    • Health Tips
  • Recipes
    • Meals
    • Healthy Recipes
    • Desserts and Cakes
    • Cookies and Snacks
    • Keto Recipes
    • Video Recipes
  • DIY
    • DIY Ideas
    • DIY Tutorials
  • Pets
    • Cats
    • Dogs
    • Rodents
    • Aquatic Pets
    • Birds
    • Funny Animal Videos
  • Home
  • Garden
    • Big Gardens
    • Small Gardens
    • Vegetables and Herbs
    • Yard and Backyard
    • Gardening Tips
    • Ornamental Plants
    • Indoor Plants
  • Home Design
    • Living Room
    • Kids Room
    • Bedroom
    • Home Office
    • Kitchen
    • Bathroom
    • Home Decor
    • Architecture and Design
    • All About Home
  • Interesting
    • Positive Stories
    • Interesting News
    • Stories Behind the Photographs
    • Odd News
  • Health & Beauty
    • Hairstyles
    • Makeup
    • Diet
    • Lifestyle & Mental Health
    • Fitness & Weight Loss
    • Beauty Tips
    • Health Tips
  • Recipes
    • Meals
    • Healthy Recipes
    • Desserts and Cakes
    • Cookies and Snacks
    • Keto Recipes
    • Video Recipes
  • DIY
    • DIY Ideas
    • DIY Tutorials
  • Pets
    • Cats
    • Dogs
    • Rodents
    • Aquatic Pets
    • Birds
    • Funny Animal Videos

Buying Furniture? – 6 Most Important Things to Consider

30
Aug
1
Buying Furniture? – 6 Most Important Things to Consider
By Nightlight
/ in All About Home,Home Design
/ tags All About Home, Home Design
1 Comment

Alison Davin’s San Francisco-based firm, Jute Interiors, specializes in crafting home interiors from start-to-finish, from space planning to final furniture selection. She gave us her top tips for getting the furniture to fit just right.

1. Ergonomics are fundamental

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
“We always start with function,” says Davin. “Having something fit your ergonomic requirements trumps what it looks like in the space.” This means Davin reviews all of the uses for a particular piece and makes sure to incorporate the client’s personal preferences.

For instance, she might place a higher-backed sofa before the television so that tall family members don’t have to lie down every time they watch a show. In the dining room, Davin often hears the request for “three hour chairs,” meaning seats need to be comfortable for long meals.




Lastly, she says to check with the whole family before making a final purchase. “Weigh in with all the different family members and get their ergonomic requests,” she says. Everybody sits in the sofa differently, so having everyone try it out first is important to avoid costly returns.

2. Double-check dimensions

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
Catalog photos are deceiving, says Davin, and never depict the size and scale of items accurately. “Definitely look at the dimensions before you order something that you haven’t seen [in person],” she says.

Ask yourself how a piece will fit in the intended room, as well as how it will be transported there. The latter is too often overlooked. Davin has heard many stories from clients about furniture-buying attempts that ended up with their purchase never actually making it in the house.

“It didn’t fit in their freight elevator or through their front door,” she says. Before buying, use painter’s tape to block out where the piece will go in the room and take measurements of all the doors and stairwells it will traverse to make it home.

3. Consider construction

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
Davin suggests doing a bit of research into where a piece of furniture was made and its materials, in order to avoid products that might contain harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde or fire retardants. Both substances have historically been common in furniture construction.

Formaldehyde is currently found in wood glue, while fire retardants are often in upholstery foam. While it’s not possible to completely avoid contact with these chemicals, making more informed purchases might lessen your exposure via their off gassing.

To do so, Davin endorses US-made products over imports, and buying solid wood over composite wood construction. “Many US retailers are sensitive to using hardwood versus composite wood that’s glued together with formaldehyde,” she says. “In the states there’s a lot more hardwood being used and it’s not only a better product, it’s going to last longer and it doesn’t off gas.”

Here’s a roundup from the Environmental Working Group of five couches without fire retardants that can be bought from large retailers, including Ikea, Room & Board, and Crate and Barrel.

4. Don’t be afraid to go bigger

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
Assessing whether a piece of furniture is proportional to the room and to the other pieces around it, or understanding if you got the scale right, can be tricky for non-designers. “If somebody can’t necessarily figure it out, I think it’s always good to not be afraid of larger pieces,” says Davin.

She says that clients often assume that a tall armoire or a large sectional will make a space feel cramped, but she finds the reverse to be true. “If positioned correctly, larger pieces can often make a room feel bigger,” she says. “Putting a lot of small pieces in a small room just makes the room feel smaller.”

5. Balance shapes

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
To get a pleasing mix of furniture pieces in a single room, Davin suggests varying their basic shapes. “What I typically do is count up how many rectangles, diamonds, and circles are in a space,” she says. Then she makes sure one shape isn’t overly dominant in the scheme.




“For instance, if you have a round lampshade and a round mirror above a fireplace, then maybe you do a rectangular coffee table and a rug that has a graphic pattern, just to balance out the shapes,” says Davin.

6. Try vintage or custom

Buying Furniture? - 6 Most Important Things to Consider
Davin always prefers scouting out vintage furniture or having something custom built for a space, rather than buying from big box retailers. “Usually we will start with vintage stuff and then build [the room] around them,” she says. “You’ll probably be able to go to a retailer and fill in the blanks with the leftover dimensions.” When shopping for vintage, she has just one suggestion: “Find things that you absolutely love.”

If having custom goods built to your specifications seems too intimidating, Davin proposes purchasing a custom rug. “If somebody’s going to shop at a chain store and buy everything there, I would recommend that they then go to a carpet retailer where they might buy wall-to-wall carpet,” she says. “Give them the dimensions and have them take one of their rugs and bind it to the perfect size, because having a rug that is custom to the space can elevate the room more than anything else.”

Source: curbed.com
Thanks for sharing this!
How to Style a Bookcase
How to Style a Bookcase 6 years ago
Clean Your Microwave Naturally
Clean Your Microwave Naturally 6 years ago
3 Fixes for Dried Glue
3 Fixes for Dried Glue 6 years ago
← Are Citrus Fruits Poisonous to Cats And Dogs?
Marshmallow Cream Filled S’mores Doughnuts →
1 Comment On This Topic
  1. Reply
    Nightlight
    6 years ago

    I like the recommendation to shop vintage or custom furniture. I think this could be a good way to differentiate myself from other rooms I’ve seen. I’ll have to look into some custom options as I think it could be a good way to get furniture that fits my home’s style perfectly. Thanks for sharing!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Quiet Corner

Tags

All About Home Architecture and Design Beauty Tips Cats cooking design diet DIY DIY Tutorial DIY Tutorials dogs Do It Yourself easy to make fitness food garden garden ideas Gardening Gardening Tips health Health and Beauty health tips healthy food Healthy Recipes home Home Interior Houseplants ideas Indoor Plants interesting Interesting Facts Interesting News Interesting Things Keto Keto Recipes meals Nutrition Ornamental Plants pet pets plant recipe recipes tips Yard and Backyard
WHO WE ARE

Quiet Corner is your place for relaxation! Quiet Corner will help keep you informed and it’s the definitive resource for weight loss, smart nutrition, health and beauty, home and gardening and all little things that make life happy, filled with tips, tricks and recipes to get you the body—and the life—you want…

LATEST COMMENTS
  • Great plans for the perfect greenhouse design my wife loves!!! I
    KEN KOPP
  • Thank you for sharing this very knowledgeable information.
    Diana
  • Beautiful
    Christina Mary Wolstenholme
POPULAR ARTICLES
  • How To Grow Banana Trees In Pots 431 people like this
  • Small Garden Design – Tips and Tricks 380 people like this
  • Keto Peanut Butter Blondie 370 people like this
  • Homemade Keto Chocolate Chips 333 people like this
OUR PAGES
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
    This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
    Privacy & Cookies Policy

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled

    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

    Non-necessary

    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.