How would you lay out this living room?

[Bluepenguin2]

Floor plan as shown in the photo, except the bay window isn’t actually a bay window (wall is straight) with a large radiator beneath. In the top right corner are the TV and broadband points, so we have a TV stand there at the minute. There is a chimney breast along the wall between the TV and conservatory doors.

Currently we have sofas along the left and lower walls, but this creates an awkward corner bottom left.

The chimney breast annoys me as we literally never use the (gas) fireplace. Husband wants to replace with electric fireplace but I don’t really want to spend money on another fireplace we would never use. It’s not structural (1980s house) but is concrete block rather than plasterboard. Ideally I’d like to remove the chimney breast but we’re worried the room will just look featureless.

I’m very open to some sort of built in storage but I just can’t work out what/where. With the position of the doors and chimney breast it seems very limited.

Would love your suggestions! Thanks.

Is it possible to move the door into the lounge to the bottom left corner? That might give more options. It's wall mounting the TV on the chimney breast above the fire possible?

I have a weird personal dislike of TVs being in the corner, it means that you spend a lot of time facing the corner of the room!

I’m assuming the chimney breast is on the wall in front of the conservatory? If you genuinely will never use the fire I would go ahead and remove it. Then use that as the TV place, either wall-mount or on a media unit. Have the sofa opposite that, with a coffee table in front.

You could have a nice feature standing lamp in the TV corner instead.

What else you do really depends on how the room is used. I have a lot of books and WFH so if this was my room I would dedicate that bottom wall to book shelves and a desk. How do you use the room?

Yes, I think it's the staring at the corner thing that bothers me too.

We have a toddler so it's used mainly for playing during the day, then TV on a night.

I don't really like TV being wall mounted from ergonomic POV but have thought about putting TV stand where the chimney breast is. I'd probably then have an L shaped sofa opposite, with a nice armchair, lamp & side table where the TV is now as a little reading nook.

My issue with this idea though is partly making the room feel smaller by the corner sofa dividing it, and partly what to do with the space behind the corner sofa (at the bottom of the room as shown on the plan)

I was going to say mount TV on chimney wall and have a large L shaped sofa and then a unit along the bay window wall but sounds like a non starter

@Bluepenguin2 @paranoiaofpufflings e.g. this

That's under the stairs??

@Pfpppl no, there’s a WC below the stairs so no way to move the living room door

I like this layout - I’d put a long console table/sideboard (art/mirror above) or perhaps bookcase/storage along that back wall.

Why cant a corner sofa move down the the bottom wall?

I love the idea of armchair/reading nook in that corner - so cosy!

The L-shape sofa and TV opposite works well, that's pretty much what I had in mind.

I'd say, rather than the L-shape diving the room being bad, this is actually a good thing. It's not a harsh divide, but on that bottom wall and in the bottom/left corner, you can use this as the toddler space. Storage units with toys and children's books. A play mat on the floor, or whatever s/he enjoys playing with. That keeps the children's stuff downstairs so they are playing where you also are in the daytime, but once they are in bed in the evening you can (literally) have your back to the toys and keep the rest of the living room as an adult space to relax.

Additional thought: maybe something to think about in future but on that fireplace wall, would you ever considering knocking down that part of the wall? You'd double the amount of light coming in and really open the room up to the garden. I would love that if it was my space,

@ScrewedByFunding because of the length of the room, it would have to be an enormous corner sofa for any of it to be opposite the TV

@paranoiaofpufflings I have thought about that, but I think only if we had a proper extension rather than the conservatory. Maybe a long term one though!

Hmm maybe you’re right, I’m not sure if there’d be enough space for a play corner behind the sofa but I’ll have a play around with proportions and see if I can make it work. Thanks!

I got chat GPT to mock up a layout for me. It's not perfect as I ran out of my free photo editing allowance and now have to wait a month to do more - but I quite like it. Any suggestions for improvements to layout, furniture etc?

What colours would you suggest for furniture, carpet and walls? It's north facing so fairly dark despite a window and patio doors. The TV would go on top of the TV stand - for some reason it didn't add this. The TV stand is based on the one we have now, I'd go for something very different.

Thanks!