apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Here are some ideas:

Put all the bookshelves (assuming they're moveable) all the way to the left of the wall they're on, or maybe one on the wall opposite of it, and put comfy chair next to them to create a reading nook. Put the loveseat so its back creates an imaginary wall that separates the reading-nook area from the living area. Put the TV either between the windows or in the corner where the solo bookshelf is, and put the black chair approximately where the loveseat is. Use the area rug between the TV, chairs, and loveseat. That way, you can look out the window or watch TV from the couch and chairs, and you can see the TV from multiple locations in the room. Find some bold, colorful art work (child's art work?) for the wall above where the chair would be, and move the smaller pictures to a smaller wall.

When you do rearrange/redecorate, please post new photos. :)

asdf3001 has given you a great start and I would add
if it is financially feasible to get bookshelves that only go half way up the wall. The Ikea Billy bookcase series comes with lots of options, are fairly inexpensive and can be purchased with doors. Tall bookcases are very dangerous with little ones who love to climb. They can topple over even if attached with a tether to the wall. An accident waitin to happen...plus it will open up your space to use bookcases at half the current height.

Ditto on the great ideas by asdf3001. It looks from the pics like the cabinet and shelves in the dining area are a little empty. Is it possible you can consolidate all the stuff so you need less furniture/shelving in this space? Also, I agree the rugs are fine, but the one in the living room is kind of just floating in the middle and would probably look better under the chairs to tie all that furniture together. The rug under the dining table is too small. Some charcoal or red cushions on the dining chairs would help harmonize the space with the living room. Finally, some new curtains may help. The windows are beautiful and a nice, rich color running along the wall would help unify the space too. All this said, I think your space is very nice and neat. Good luck!

Figuring out your seating arrangement will be much easier without having to take the bookcases into account. First thing I'd do is sell them. Then I'd put up shelves all the way across the upper part of that wall.

Different curtains that pick up a color in the rug (which I agree is fine) would balance it. And if it's possible, I'd think about selling the armchair and replacing it with something lighter, leggier and more modern. It plus the loveseat plus the bookcases just make the room feel really heavy.

A floorplan would definitely help. Also, what you have looks usable it just needs re-arranging. You mention you'd like eco-friendly suggestions, and one of the greenest things you can do is Reuse what you already have, especially since it looks pretty nice.

move those book cases out of the living room and put all of your storage along that under used wall beyond the dining table.

it would be best to have some sort of unified storage furniture along that wall, but just getting all of that stuff out of the living room will help a lot

You've hit on the right idea with the word "harmonize". This space has no harmony. I mean, you have three different styles of shelving in the same room! Of course it looks fragmented!

Get rid of all of the bookcases and replace then with built-in shelves, situated in the niche near the dining table - it could almost have been made for built-in shelves. Get some cabinet doors from IKEA for the bottom shelves so that your baby can't get into them or climb it.

If necessary buy some storage furniture - wooden chests, big lidded baskets, small low IKEA cabinets - to store toys and other items unsuitable for the shelves.

As for the layout, I'm assuming that there's a door in the middle of the wall adjacent to the TV. That makes arrangement difficult. Shifting the TV to the opposite wall might make it more visible to the couch. Alternately if you swap it with the armchair, then turn the armchair to face the windows, that might work.

I like the existing rug and the wood floors, and the matt black furniture is fairly low-key. The whole room has a rather Scandinavian retro vibe for me. I think if you introduce other large scale, colourful objects into the room (big artworks or artwork clusters, rugs, a potted tree etc) it will balance out the furniture.

I like the gauzy white curtains - perhaps just tart them up with a fine strip of colour down one edge? Something that matches the rug. I also like the plain white walls - it's that Scandinavian thing again.

You have a lot of nice furniture already, so by all means, I think this is just a matter of thinking more strategically about where to place your furniture. When you have time, get yourself to one of those free "virtual room arrangement" sites and play around with different configurations. (You can input the size of your room, the size of your furniture, etc). They are really helpful for this sort of thing!

My suggestions:
-Avoid blocking that nice window in the living room. Open it up so there's a clear walkway (move clutter and chair away from it). Would make the room calmer, not to mention safer.

-Create a special area/nook in living room for your son's toys with cubbies or baskets he can reach easily. No trunks with heavy lids (that could slam down on little fingers).

-Those little storage boxes on top of the bookshelves are really bugging me. My rule is that I don't store anything in places that I can't reach easily. I would decide if whatever is in them is *really* worth keeping, and then find a better place to put them, inside furniture, not on top of it.

-Place the furniture closer to the centers of the walls, NOT in the corners of the room. It bothers me that the curtains are all up in your shelving.

-I would center the two equal size bookshelves in the middle of one of your walls (instead of out to the corners), and have just a bit of room in between the two to put a nice potted houseplant (non-poisonous of course). Houseplants are definitely eco-friendly and help clean the air!

As others have said, it's hard to tell without a floor plan, since we're not sure the exact space you have to rearrange...that said, what about putting the sofa with its back to the table and perhaps with a console (sofa) table behind it. this would create serving space for the dining area and a visual barrier between the two space. That would also free up the wall the sofa is currently on to move the TV to a more functional spot. The chair could stay in its current location, but maybe pulled out from the wall a bit to let those curtains flow. I agree that I like that rug, but if you want eco-friendly, FLOR uses recycled materials in many of their products, not to mention being kid friendly since if your child destroys one spot you can simply replace that one tile. I also think you could use some more color, either on the walls, while keeping your current drapes, or if you're not wanting to paint, get some more colorful curtains to enliven the space. As others have said, I think that unifying the storage a bit will also help harmonize the space.

Lots of good suggestions here...good luck!