Why You Should Avoid Furniture That's All On Legs For Your Living Room

A well-designed home can affect how you react to life's many stressors, but important considerations for interior design often get overlooked. You might think about how minimal you want the decor, what lighting should be available, the durability and size of each item, as well as how to decorate your home on a budget. Just honing in on furniture adds multiple new dimensions, from matching upholstery colors to finding ergonomic chairs that support your body. However, designer Aoife Maria of @stylesosimple on Instagram suggests that one mistake you might not be considering–but should avoid–is having too many furniture legs around your living room.

Maria approaches this topic from a wholly aesthetic perspective, pointing out how four long legs on every chair, table, and couch can make a space feel cluttered. There are more practical concerns you can extrapolate from this advice, too; for example, cleaning every piece becomes a hassle when you have to wipe each leg and get underneath them to vacuum your rug. An autonomous vacuum like a Roomba or Shark wouldn't help much either, as they're designed to avoid obstacles like furniture. That's not to mention the cliche of wobbly, offset chairs that could affect any piece with legs, often due to the wood swelling and shrinking from ambient moisture, leading to the anchor bolts not holding firmly. Ultimately, diversity is key when it comes to picking out your living room furniture.

When selecting furniture for a living room that you don't want to feel cluttered, Maria similarly recommends avoiding the mistake of having no legs at all, creating a bottom-heavy aesthetic. Having a few pieces with and without legs, with more unique design choices in between, is the way to go. For example, when it comes to seating, some alternatives you can consider include casual beanbag or sacco chairs, papasan chairs with interchangeable bases and cushion designs, or even more statement art pieces like the Pipo chair with a single front-facing leg. If you have to buy that perfect four-legged piece you find at a thrift store, at least seek some diversity in the types of legs they sit upon: fluted legs, tapered saber legs, and conjoined spider legs all give off different vibes.

Certain interior design choices could help you avoid buying any additional legged furniture. Having a standing desk is often associated with productivity at work or home offices, but there's nothing stopping you from putting one in the living room to help flawlessly integrate your TV, family computer space, or even creative endeavors without the need for a separate chair. At the end of the day, some considerations will likely trump the question of how many furniture legs are cluttering your living room, especially if you're a fan of vintage interior designs that lean on the sustainability of antiquing old furniture. Still, it would be a mistake to make your comfortable living space a maze of tripping hazards, so give your choice of living room furniture a second thought.