<p>Going along with the flow here…what is in your formal living room if you have one?</p>
<p>I’ll start. A comfy loveseat, chair, piano and bench, glass coffee table with a plant and photo album on it, glass side table with lamp and a cribbage board, a table with family photos under the window, and a plant stand with a peace lily on it. Room is nice and bright. No TV.</p>
<p>Couch, chairs, marble topped console table, assorted side tables, umbrella stand, ottoman, and fireplace. Plus photos and paintings.</p>
<p>And last Saturday night, assorted 17 year olds. To go with the assorted side tables.</p>
<p>Ha. One mid-sized grand piano on which sits a metronome, a piano bench, a small lamp, and a candelabra, a pretty music stand and chair, one oboe, one 1/2 sized violin, one flute, a basket filled with music, one sofa with pillows and in front of it a coffee table topped with a big bowl of shells we’ve collected, one decorative table with a lamp and a handmade vase, one wood TV tray/table covered in a large silk scarf–this acts as an end table–with an old brass lamp.</p>
<p>My living room is not so formal, lol! We have a seagrass frame sofa and swivel chair with a stone topped coffee table with a low glass bowl of shells on it. The matching end table has a lamp, vase and coaster set on it and we have a wrought iron and art glass torchiere opposite it. Above the couch are two tall palm tree paintings. On the opposite wall is a tropical style armoire bar. The room opens onto our pool and patio and is flooded with sunlight. No TV but speakers to the TV and entertainment system in the family room for music.</p>
<p>Assuming you’re talking about a formal living room that doesn’t get daily use??? I don’t have one of those…</p>
<p>couch, chair, pictures, square coffee table, end tables, side table with nicely framed photos…nothing too exciting. Exception is during Christmas…then the tree is in there. </p>
<p>Our living room isn’t very big…about the size of a small bedroom. Our home was built when it was popular to have a smaller living room…probably because people don’t use them much.</p>
<p>all antiques</p>
<p>cupboard full of export porcelain
two settees
tea table holding the last two New Yorkers
various side chairs
two candle stands used as drinks tables/holding coasters/one has a poinsettia sitting on an export saucer
two upholstered chairs by the fireplace and
an upholstered stool for putting my feet up on when I read
a table holding a portion of one of our many collections and books we are currently reading and another poinsettia in an export saucer
paintings on the walls
mirror over mantle
room sized rug
some other small collections but I hate to get too specific</p>
<p>It is a pretty cliche sort of room. I still love it.</p>
<p>Right now I have a rented 8 foot table and 10 chairs that I need to return to the rental co. We had a team dinner Friday night.</p>
<p>Antiques as well. A sofa…two chairs…ottoman…antique coffee table and side table from Hong Kong…and an antique curio cabinet also purchased in Hong Kong by my father.</p>
<p>My sentimental love of my father’s antiques makes it impossible for us to give up our much underused formal living room. When our kids were younger they wanted us to replace all furnishings with a pool table but we just couldn’t do it. </p>
<p>Also, it is the room that holds the Christmas tree!!!</p>
<p>My formal living room is not so formal either and it’s stuffed.
It has:
Furniture
One ultrasuede sofa with assorted cushions and two throws
One big pottery barn armchair
One small upholstered rocker - on at least it’s third cover (I think my parents bought it when I was 11)
One huge carved coffee table from Indonesia (from dh’s family)
One Zanzibar chest (birthday present when I was 16)
One desk with lid built by my great-grandfather
A stool my Mom gave me
A stool from Africa
A big armoire hiding the TV, VCR, DVD player, music deck, tapes and CDs
A Harvard Captain’s Chair
Other stuff
Fire place tools
Two trash cans (one is pretty, the other escapes from my too small office)
Two oriental carpets from my mother’s house
Three plants
A basket with recycled newspapers
Way too many unread newspapers and magazines on the coffee table
Four cribbage boards (there are even more in the basement)
An abacus
A desk lamp
Two kettle balls, one set of dumb bells
A paper shredder
Speakers
Art
A pastel portrait of my grandmother at 16
A framed aerial photograph of the first house I designed
A pastel portrait of my younger son aged 9, reading *The Lord of the Rings *surrounded by all his stuffed animals (done by me)
Two Hiroshige prints
Three watercolor paintings by me (two landscapes, one still life)
African sculpture from Mali and Tanzania
Sculpture from Thailand
A pottery vase thrown by my brother</p>
<p>I should add, our formal living room is not so formal either. We wanted it to be usable, not a shrine.</p>
<p>My family room doesn’t look a lot different but there is a TV there, and a bit more clutter (books, magazines). Our fireplace is in the family room. We have two Christmas trees…beautiful fake tree goes in the living room. Real tree in the family room.</p>
<p>That is the beauty of our modern floorplan. There is no formal living room. We have a small “piano room” that houses our baby grand piano and there isn’t room for much else in there. There are built-in shelves with photographs and albums.</p>
<p>As a 30th wedding anniversary gift to me (and my H), I hired a decorator and had it “done” to my taste. It is fairly formal: muted floral couch, 2 arm chairs, 2 rolling “cubes” (small ottomans), 2 end tables, coffee table, small hutch cabinet, larger hutch cabinet that belonged to my grandmother, and an electric fireplace. Sage green carpet, fabrics in greens, cream, and pale golds. Art by local artists.</p>
<p>No TV, no stereo. I love it!</p>
<p>mathmom --</p>
<p>Wow, your living room is literally stuffed. What are the dimensions?</p>
<p>We never use ours. We have a couch, 4 chairs, and 4 tables. I’d love to get rid of all of it. We’ve had some of the pieces for over 30 years.</p>
<p>aqua, my living room is 22’-3" by 14’-4" (thanks laser measure). Not big enough. We don’t have a family room so it really does get lived in.</p>
<p>Grand piano…the living rooms main purpose! However, my husband now works from home and has a desk in there since we can close the doors.</p>
<p>Mostly antiques, with the exception of the sofa… 2 french side chairs, upholstered arm chair that my great grandmother used to read to me in, antique sofa table, 2 antique side tables, antique armoire and antique coffee table. Also an antique rug… I love that room, because it is ALWAYS clean. :)</p>
<p>One upright piano (from my childhood), and a concert grand piano, a sofa, “coffee” table…glass top, two barrel chairs, one very antique chair…an antique display cabinet, sofa table with lots of family pictures, end table (two) totally different…antique silk Persian rug. We actually have an art collection…part is in here…my mother’s exercise bike. My mom died in 1995.</p>
<p>Yes, it is a huge room…18 by 35.</p>
<p>Our new living room furniture, and rug, are coming in tomorrow. It will be a leather sofa with two side sofa tables, an oversized ottoman, and swivel accent chair to mirror our existing swivel/gliding club chair, a credenza and two occasional chairs to sit on either side of it. We also have a side table that looks like a stack of trunks. The shelves on either side of the fireplace are filled with glass art and treasures we picked up on travels. Over the glass pieces on the mantle hangs the 63" flat panel television.</p>
<p>Upholstered sofa, 1 antique mahogany end table, curio cabinet, mahogany folding table, 1 upholstered chair, 1 rosewood Chinese chair, decoupage tall vase, 2 Japanese woodcut paintings, 1 Chinese silk painting over fireplace, 1 lamp, 1 glass top coffee table and 1 oriental carpet. While I love the room, many pieces brought back from our travels, we seldom if ever use the space.</p>