If your anything like me, it's not just the problem of finding a spot for the chair, but making it useful enough to keep or justify to any significant other/roommate who may have grown tired of your furniture "rescues" that poses a challenge. This is especially true if your main seating area is bursting at the seams complete. Creating a scheme wherein the chair looks deliberate and content being a loner is key. A few tips...
• Find it a friend. A small side table is the perfect companion to a stray chair. The combo creates an instant relaxation zone— a place to drink coffee and curl up with a favorite read.
• Tie it in with textiles. A throw draped over the back, an accent pillow, or if you're up for getting fancy, a slipcover, will do wonders to a loner's appearance. Even when placed on the outskirts of a seating arrangement a chair that holds a hint of the main group's color scheme or pattern will look right at home.
• Surround it with art. A lone chair looks perfectly purposeful when placed in good aesthetic company— it becomes the anchor of an otherwise random grouping by making an art wall into a destination. You need not go all out either, a few decorative objects like hanging plates (picture 3) or leaning branches (picture 5) will do the trick.
• Create a reading nook. Pair it with a bookcase (picture 2) and/or reading lamp for the perfect reading spot.
Thoughts?
Images: 1: Skona Hem, 2: Apartment Therapy, 3:HomeLife, 4:Notebook Magazine, 5:Design*Sponge
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See, I don't get the dilemma... I guess I just like eclectic interiors. Are chairs/sofas etc. supposed to match? Or just be of the same stye? I think maybe my decorating style is
"furniture orphanage."
Then there's the other option:
Make your hobby profitable by fixing up/recovering these flea-market/garage-sale finds, rotating them through your home, then eventually selling them to someone else who doesn't have the creativity/ingenuity/vision that you do.
I like eclectic too, baba yaga. But right up there with patriarchy, engrained matching/symmetrical furniture ideals is one of societies biggest downfalls. Kidding. I can say, tho, that I have a problem trying to step out of the matching-furniture box, but I'm inching my way out of it. Just bought a lone (busted-up-but-soon-to-be-awesome) chair for a reading corner. We'll see how it goes.
Do you have any pics of your furniture orphanage?
@baba yaga,
That is one of the best descriptions of an interior space that I have ever seen. Accurate, poignant and infinitely relatable.
If you don't mind, I'll add it to my list.
These are all great suggestions! I love the idea of creating a reading corner. I've done that with a chair I recently reupholstered and refinished... and I love my new reading nook!
I love that chair; I'd take it home in a heartbeat. Whether or not it had a "friend" wouldn't be an issue.
Leah the author here. baba yaga- I agree with you about eclectic interiors, and I suppose this post was not meant to be so much about how to make a loner chair "match" but how to make it seem well placed on the outskirts. I have quite a few chairs that can be pulled into seating arrangements when needed but they have to fit into their own little loner zones on a daily basis without looking like a random floating chair if that makes sense.
Good post, I just rescued a chair shaped like chair #5 from the Salvation Army this weekend. I couldn't pass up a really well made chair upholstered in leopard print velvet for only $35. I felt I could live with the current fabric until I can afford to get it recovered. Right now it hovers awkwardly in my office with two matching chairs, so I'll try out some of these ideas.
While I love "orphanage furniture" style, I find that it is done easily by other people. I can't seem to do it.
I'm currently reupholstering (traditional style !) a beautiful Louis 15 chair I found abandoned in my attic, and I can't seem to make it work in our bedroom, so this post is timely !