The family room (okay, all our rooms) are pretty thrown together – they’re just full of the stuff we still have after multiple moves and everything is where we decided to put it on the hectic move-in day. The couch is from 2006 – it was the very first thing I bought for my apartment when I moved closer to my first job.

Anyway, now that we’ve been here two and a half years, there’s some bandwidth for thinking about the way rooms are arranged and potentially upgrading some of the furniture. I hate to get rid of perfectly useful stuff (I’m also super cheap), so I wanted to see if just moving furniture around would make me feel better about the room. That’s free and easy.

Here’s the original arrangement:

Here’s the new arrangement (+grubs on the mantle):

This is nice, I like it.

I like that the TV and fireplace are more of a set and a centerpiece to the room. I’m sure an interior decorator somewhere is cringing, but it’s hard to argue with a free room refresh via re-arranged furniture.

We also used this as an excuse to further thin out our book collection. Go to your bookshelf and find three things you’ll never read again. Remove them. Feels good, doesn’t it? Do it a few more times, and now you have room for new books!! :D

Other Rooms We’ve Flipped:

Dining room – rotating the table 90 degrees opened up new “traffic” patterns and improved the view for both of us!

Family room (apartment) – flipping the whole room 180 degrees put the TV in front of the fireplace, but improved traffic flow and lighting.

Bedroom (my first apartment) – changing which wall the bed was on improved airflow and made the closet more accessible.