apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i love low profile furniture. i live in one of the many 'garden apartments' in chicago. the ceiling height is lower than standard. low profile furniture helps to add a little height to the room.

i do think that the eames tables are a little too short. they look nice along side the LCW but are impractical if blended with not so low profile furniture.

Where is that coffee table set on the right from? I like that.

The two coffee tables -- one tall and narrow, the other shorter and long -- are by Marcel Breuer. The Laccio collection.

Danka!

Low-slung furniture is great, as long as you're never pregnant, old, in a cast, or suffering from a bad back.

I greatly dislike overstuffed and overscaled furniture, but low to the ground isn't comfortable for me, as I'm nearly 6 feet tall and my husband is taller. It's sort of like baby tees--cute in the magazine, a pain in real life.

While I like the coziness factor and increased ceiling height illusion, I often feel trapped when I'm forced to sit in low-slung furniture. It takes more effort to lower down and pop up (not that I'm feeble, I'm in excellent shape. No, for realsies.) so I end up feeling stuck. It's like the lower furniture just sucks me into its vortex and I end up comatose in couch-land.

Perhaps there's a little hyperbole there, but ya get the drift.

I like low slung but do agree that some of it can be much too low for ease of getting in and out of. However that said, lowish tables and the like are fine, especially when paired with tallish lamps with more or less normal height sofas and chairs.

However, tall/overstuffed furniture just makes the room seem more crowded than it actually is.

What I like are sofas that are more or less standard seating height, but have low-ish backs and arms for a lower, slimmer profile overall and yes, that does help to make the room seem bigger than it actually may be and in that case, paring them w/ lowish tables is preferable but there again, not too low.

But I like a mixture of tall case goods w/ low to moderate hight upholstered pieces and low to moderate height tables where appropriate in a decidedly modern setting.

There's a reason standard sizes are standard sizes.

Where did the paintings/prints on the wall in the background come from? I LOVE them!

I like low-profile furniture, but my husband is 6 feet tall and not terribly flexible. In my parents traditional Korean household, he has a tough time with floor seated dining. So I don't think he'd go for many low-profile pieces for our home.

cparrish already asked but I second the request. Where can you get the black and white furniture prints on the wall? I must have them!

cparrish and matthieu, the photo is from a Design Within Reach showroom. I think they're part of the showroom display, probably made for the store by DWR, but I'm not positive. That's just my guess.

I have a low profile sofa, I think 29" to the top of the back, and it makes my living room look taller. My previous sofa was about 34" tall, but no longer or deeper, and the change has completely altered scale the perception of the space.

I'm 6'5, so it's completely impractical for me.

I finally achieved the look of higher ceilings by buying a house that actually had higher ceilings.

Aside from that, I love a clean, simple look, but I'm absolutely never willing to sacrifice comfort for appearance.

Low-profile isn't just furniture that sits close to the ground - it could also be furniture that doesn't make a big impact in the room such as furniture you can see through like glass tables, open chairs like the Platner wire ones or those clear plastc ones whose name escapes me and open book shelves. All are great in a small room because your eye doesn't stop at the boundaries of the material but passes through to the next boundary - probably a wall.

Close to the ground low profile is fine until you're 35 and you're knees start to go...

I'm often attracted to low-profile furniture, but as my husband is 6'3" it's just not in the cards for our apartment. Plus, we're middle-aged. We need to start saving up for the recliners that boost you into a standing position.

so question..if you have high ceilings (but not a lot of square footage in your living room), do you not go with low profile furniture? Will everything just look like a dollhouse or will the fact that it's not a large room width and lengthwise balance out the height of the ceilings?

it does somewhat limit your options when furniture shopping, i've found. i made the mistake of buying a chair without thinking about the seat height and it was completely ridiculous! now we have to be very careful about it when we add furniture to our living room....

I hope that as long as I keep going to yoga class I can keep all my lovely low-profile furniture until I finally expire!

I'm past 35 and my knees are just fine, thank you. ANd I use them often.