Quick Change: Berkeley

BEFORE:  A living room that just wasn't working for the family:

The homeowner said this seating area was never used...

while the other end of the room was used frequently for reading and playing chess and piano, but looked and felt cluttered:

The challenge was to make the entire room functional and integrated. The biggest obstacle was the oversized sofa, which was cutting the room in half:

In the next room, which was being used as a dining room/family room, we found a smaller scaled sofa:

We brought that into the living room and positioned it facing the fireplace, which immediately opened up the space. We brought in the dining table as well, where it can double as a larger surface for playing chess. The piano keyboard was moved into the family room, along with the much larger sofa.

The living room BEFORE:

and AFTER:

BEFORE:

and AFTER:                                                        

BEFORE:

and AFTER:

We moved the rug from the back of the room into the seating area to ground it and to create a warm welcoming entrance, as this is the first room to greet you as you enter the house. Without the large barrier of the sofa, it's now inviting to come in and sit down and easier for family and friends to interact with each other. And to make the dining room table multi functional, we placed 2 chairs in the back,  2 small scale armchairs that were floating around the room at each end, and an upholstered ottoman in front.
We also switched out the coffee table, and exchanged the small accessories that were dotting the mantle for bigger pieces with more impact. Now the room can work hard and look good!