Sharing Designers’ Secrets: How to Maximize a Tiny Living Room

Whether your budget’s extra-tight due to frequent moves to wherever the work is, or you’re just starting out, you might be frustrated with your abode’s small square footage seemingly thwarting your design ideal for your living room. Well, we at Ivan Smith Furniture are here to say when there is a will, there is a way! Don’t fret. Our many years of outfitting homes just like yours along with the acumen of the many designers we’ve known have enabled us to offer you the following bits of free advice on how best to pick and place living room furniture for smaller rooms.

Embrace the Smallness: Intimate Space Is Good

Don’t think “cramped”; accentuate the positive by redefining this fact as coziness. No, we’re not in denial. An upbeat attitude in this planning process via clever design tricks will be conveyed to your guests. You might be tempted to make your space seem bigger. Don’t be, advise the top interior designers. Rather, accept your room’s character as is. One way to do that when choosing your living room’s seating is to keep all of it — sofa or loveseat, recliner, etc. — gathered together around the coffee table like you’re on the set of a TV chat show. Emphasize the unity of your living room furniture vision by placing a boldly patterned accent rug under it. Voilà: instant rapport among your guests.

Wow with Bright Light and the Right Hues

No, we don’t mean shining a light in your guests’ eyes so they don’t see your dinky room. We’re being imaginative here. Bright lighting strategically placed will make your cozy living room even more inviting. So go for it with beautiful accent lighting and mirrors to reflect that light. Also, consider painting your walls white or some other light color. A designer tip: show off your favorite paintings or photos in matching light-colored frames for an uncluttered but impressive art-gallery vibe. If your space is blessed with sunlight, choose bright or white window treatments such as curtains.

Go for the Cool Ottomans!

Maybe you can’t even squeeze a traditional coffee table onto your living room floor. Time to improvise! Two or more cool living room ottomans, ideally the storage kind that open on top, will ably do the table’s job, plus they double as seating if you need that.

To get a better idea which living room furniture and home accents might work best in your small space, stop by our Nacogdoches, TX store or any of our other locations for top brands all for a bargain.

Measuring for Your Entertainment Furniture

So you’ve got the screen, sound, games, and other equipment you’ve always wanted for your TV room or den. Great. But sometimes picking the right entertainment furniture can be a case of information overload so you burn out before you can even decide! I know; it’s a First World problem but it’s still true. Here are some practical tips from the world of interior design to simplify the task when you come to any of Ivan Smith Furniture’s stores. You’ll love your entertainment room’s form and function. Let’s get started.

Fitting In: Entertainment Furniture Right for Your Space

Entertainment furniture from Ivan Smith is always right for your budget but not every piece, however beautiful or grand, is right for every space. Check it with a tape measure and write down the dimensions.

First, determine how much floor space you have to spare in your entertainment room. If it’s cramped, fear not. Ivan Smith can get you a fine corner TV stand complete with shelves that will serve you just fine.

Next, make sure your TV will fit the space allotted for it in the entertainment furniture piece(s) you’re interested in, even if you think you remember the screen size from the box it came in, etc. Again it’s tape-measure time. While we’re generous with returns and exchanges, why do that when you can nail it with your initial purchase? Okay. First off, the screen size you might remember emblazoned on the box measures diagonally across the screen. So be sure to measure the piece of furniture accordingly. To be extra sure your set’s dimensions fit on a TV stand or entertainment center shelf, measure and record the set’s height including the base of course and width.

Get the Stats: Distances for Ideal, Healthy TV Watching

Optimal television viewing places the bottom of your screen level with the line of sight when you’re seated. So, holding something straight, have someone seated on the sofa etc. hold one end while you walk to the wall and LIGHTLY mark the line of sight on it. Then whip out your tape measure again and record the distance from the floor to your line of sight. The shelf or stand top on which your TV will rest should be no more than 1 foot (12 inches) below your measurement.

Your mom was right: don’t sit too close to the TV! For a 29-inch TV, make sure you have at least 3 feet of distance between the screen and your eyeballs, up to 5 feet for a 46-inch model. If you’ve got the home-theater thing going with a larger set, sit back about 7 feet.

There; that wasn’t so bad. All it takes to choose is a bit of effort measuring and writing things down. Of course for the most exciting styles and lowest prices in the South on top brand entertainment furniture, visit our Shreveport, LA store or any of our other locations.

For Peace at Home, Rearrange Your Furniture the Feng Shui Way

Feng Shui’s roots run way back to ancient China, where it was practiced to harness a room’s energy. Basically, it’s a glorified practice of decorating that places an emphasis on practicality and spaciousness. But if we take out the spiritual elements of Feng Shui and strip it down to its bare bones, we are left with some great ideas for furniture arrangement! 

Assess Your Living Space

Using Feng Shui to artfully arrange your home furniture can yield some great results, because you’ll end up creating a space that works practically and has a comforting feel. Think about how jarring it can be to walk into a place that has stuff everywhere – boxes on the floor, trash scattered about, silverware on tables, cups on TV stands, window sills with change on them, an unnecessary television – you get the idea. It can make you a bit anxious, right? Now, think about how nice it is to walk into a place that is open, neat, organized. It’s peaceful, isn’t it? 

Basic Feng Shui Rules

When shopping for your new living room sofa, TV, table or any other piece for your home, consider the following so you can maximize your space and get the most out of your furniture!

Get rid of the clutter! That goes for trash, clothes and anything that doesn’t belong in a living room. If you simply don’t have the space to put out-of-place things elsewhere, fret not. Just make sure they are neatly placed somewhere out of the way.

Optimize the amount of natural sunlight getting into your living room. So if you have stuff on your window sill, move it! And, at every opportunity, open those shades and blinds to wash your space in beautiful sunlight. 

Keep your furniture out of pathways – basically, don’t make it difficult to move around. You don’t want an obstacle course in the room where you relax. Think about the room’s entry and exit points when considering this.

Put your sofa and chairs against walls. These are your main pieces because you use them to rest. Having them “anchored” against a solid object will ensure you’ve got the most space possible to walk around. Also, if you can, make sure the people sitting have a line of sight toward the room’s main entry point. Why? Because it’s inviting to walk into a room and be greeted by the people who are already there. Plus, no one can sneak up on you!

Have a focal point, whether it’s a TV, portrait of your family or simply a candle on the coffee table. Build your room around it. Also, group objects that are related to one another. For example, don’t have a sofa on one wall and two chairs on the other; don’t put an end table next to the television, etc. 

We hope you found this useful. The next time you’re thinking about adding to or enhancing the Feng Shui of your living room, stop by our Carthage, TX store or any of our other locations. We have great deals on accessories, couches and everything else you need to create a comfortable living space on a budget!

Reinvent Yourself in a New Bedroom this Autumn of 2018

In the autumn of 2018, as the leaves bronze and crunch under your feet, you may be feeling the urge to shake and shed a bit yourself. And where do you feel this most acutely than in your own home or apartment—riddled with old and aging furniture, no doubt.

Rather than dwell on the past, liberate and express yourself, starting with all the furniture in your bedroom! Listen to our experts here at Ivan Smith Furniture in Carthage, TX, as we explore your options for reinvention and brand-new bedroom decor.

Reinvent Your Bedroom Dresser to Impress Yourself

Reinventing yourself, quite literally, means changing how you feel throughout the day; and since you begin each day in your bedroom, that means your furniture. While rethinking your bed and bedframe may seem intuitive, it’s only one part (albeit, a major part) of a larger whole. In fact, if there’s one single piece of home decor that could do with an update, it’s probably your bedroom dresser.

These days, it’s not simply enough to have a few drawers to store your socks, shirts, and pants; you should be donning some style, too. Get all that classic or contemporary charm, in a polished and weathered look, with a dresser mirror to boot.

Store Your Valuables in an Antique or Modern Nightstand

What’s more practical to you—the likely smartphone user—than an affordable nightstand that’s close to your bed, and easily accessible to you when you’re waking up, and going to sleep. You can feel that much more organized, and illuminated, by planting a lamp on an antique or modern nightstand. Coupled with the extra drawer space, your new nightstand will afford you opportunity to reassess what’s most useful and precious to you.

Don Yourself in a New Bedding Set to Update Your Look

You may be telling yourself, “Reinvention’s a great concept; but who can honestly afford it?” We hear you—which is why we want to talk to you about bed sets. Rather than purchase a new bed headboard, why not focus on your bedding itself? Grab a cover set that’s chic and fit; or bedding that’s clean and crisp, made from fabrics that are easily washable, and totally delightful to touch.

Your options, in a sense, are endless, when you shop with us here at Ivan Smith Furniture,near Carthage, Texas. We’ll lend a helping hand as you explore new styles and reinvent yourself one room, and one season at a time.

Reinforcing Your Dining Room Decor for Your Next Social Gathering

We know how it goes: after decades of hosting your family gatherings, somebody’s passed this honorary designation onto you. Now you’re scanning over your dining room furniture and asking yourself, ‘Who would be impressed by this?’ If your own scenario is anywhere close to this, you can relax—we’ll take it from here, as we guide you through the process of revamping everything in your dining room, for the largest and most splendid dinners, all on a reasonable budget.

Start Decorating with a Cohesive Dining Room Set

Luckily for homeowners and decorators, the endeavor of redecorating the dining room is greatly aided by the existence of matching dining room sets. With a single purchase, you can transform the atmosphere of your space, and align its aesthetic around a dining room table and chairs that naturally complement it. Imagine how your guests and family will feel, being asked to sit down at a vintage dining room table—newly finished and gleaming with plenty of style. The cohesion of a dining room set dramatically and effectively influences the atmosphere of the room in your favor.

Allow for Seating with Side Chairs and Dining Benches

Although we may often overlook this, one of the real tricks to a successful social gathering: the positions of your guests at the dining table. If you want to spur conversation and smooth out the evening as much as possible, seat the most amiable and talkative people at least a chair or two apart. Newlywed couples, being inseparable, will prefer to be seated side-by-side, in which case your best bet for them would be: a comfortable and cushy dining bench. Be mindful of how long you intend to serve dinner in your dining room, and ensure your seating caters to this. 

Beautiful Dining Room Buffets Seal the Deal with Guests

With all the dining room essentials out of the way, get bolder and more creative. A finely finished dining buffet can do more than impress your family—it can give you ample room for extra dishes and courses of food, minimizing all those extra trips back and forth into your kitchen. Given the size of the average dining buffet, it’s also a terrific way to reinforce the theme, or aesthetic of the dining room, while also appearing practical.

Knowing all of this, don’t hesitate to visit our furniture store in Athens, Texas to update all your dining room decor, at a price that caters to you.

A Guide to Choosing Kids’ Bunk Beds

Twin bunk beds are a longtime favorite among kids’ room furniture buyers for obvious reasons. They’re cute to look at, use less floor space, and are so much fun for your young roomies and friends for life. There are so many fine designs to choose from that it can be daunting for parents. Here is a quick rundown on kinds of kids’ bunk beds and which might be the best fit for your household.

Economizing Floor Space

If your kids’ room is on the small side, consider a bunk bed set with a straight ladder or with a staircase built into the frame. Some of the latter feature grooved stairs for added safely. For top-floor kids’ rooms with odd rooflines, bunk bends with a staggered design, only partially overlapping, are an ingenious solution. If your situation is the opposite, with a lofty ceiling, consider triple bunks, fun for sleepovers.

Different Size Bunk Beds for Various Needs

If you love to cuddle with your little one and a good story for some quality time before bed, or your young roommates are at different stages, a great bunk-bed option is to have the bottom bunk be a full bed with a twin above it. Later, you can add some back pillows to convert the bottom bed into an improvised sofa.

Imaginative Bunk Bed Options for Younger Kids

To fuel your younger child’s imagination there are many fun add-ons to consider for his or her bunk bed, from a slide to curtains and even top tents making every bedtime an adventure.

To see great kids’ bunk beds for yourself, check out our Greenville,TX store and our other locations in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

Re-Arrange Your Living Room Furniture to Nurture Yourself

When you think about your living room, what activities does it conjure up? If you’re like the bulk of us these days, your thoughts probably go straight to the watching of TV, and the glancing at your laptop or smartphone. But it’s refreshing to detach from the technological and focus on the world around us sometimes—including our friends and families, as well as our living spaces.

All of these things can directly affect our moods and our state of minds every day. It doesn’t take a psychologist or fortune teller in Alexandria, Louisiana to tell you that one, either. But when you confer with us, we’ll conjure up exotic visions of your living room: ones in which you see yourself reclining on a dreamy sleeper sofa, gripping your favorite paperback or hardcover.

Reimagine Your Living Space: Visualizing a Two Piece Sectional

Pause to appreciate the space in which you find yourself. The relationships between people and their homes are usually reflected in the places where they linger the most when they enter them, as well as those they avoid. Perhaps you don’t read or study as much as you’d like because you don’t yet a place to which you can truly retreat, far away from your bedroom, and concentrate.

Cozy Chaises for Resting, Reflecting and Recalibrating Yourself

Who hasn’t dreamt of letting it all hang at your sides, as you press your back against mahogany: the epitome of cozy and chaise. Therapists employ stitched seating for a reason—it allows you to decompress from all the stresses of the day. Once you turn off the buzzing and reflect in total comfort, you enter a higher state altogether—one that runs and exudes another energy entirely.
Don’t delay your own metamorphosis. Get down to the nearest Ivan Smith and get excited by all the colors, styles and orientations of our living room and home furniture, all over again!

How to Choose the Right Recliner for You

Just like there are many comfortable sneakers to choose from, not every reclining chair is right for every person. When you are shopping for a relaxing living room recliner to sink into after a hectic day, you must consider three factors: size, longevity, features, and style.

The Twofold Factor of Size

Size refers both to the chair seating you comfortably and the space you are working with. In a smaller living room, a compact glider and small ottoman are an option, if they fit your frame! Of the utmost importance when choosing the correct recliner is conformity with your body shape, offering enough support. Ask yourself: Can you easily adjust the recliner to relieve pressure on your knees? Are you equally comfortable sitting with the recliner folded up and extended? Will more than one person be using it?

How Long Do You Plan on Keeping Your Recliner?

Assuming you will use your recliner at least once a day, a reasonable life expectation for a recliner is about 10 years. Of course, if you pick a sturdier model and are careful handling it, you can stretch that for the most enjoyment and savings, so you won’t need to spend money again in only a few years.

What Recliner Features Do You Need?

If your body has particular needs, be sure to make a checklist before choosing a living room recliner. For example, you will likely be much happier in the long run with a recliner offering lots of lumbar support for your back. If a sore neck is a recurring problem, look into a recliner with an articulating headrest. For the ultimate recliner experience, check out chairs with built-in massage settings, so relaxing you will likely drift off to sleep!

Which Style Can You Best Live With?

Do you like your current décor so much that you expect your new recliner to match it forever? Fortunately for you, recliners now come in a variety of styles from traditional luxury to clean contemporary lines.

For an awesome selection of sizes, styles, and features in living room recliners at record low prices every day, count on Ivan Smith Furniture. Visit our Lufkin, TX showroom or any of our other locations in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana soon!

Protect Your Investment with These Helpful Mattress Maintenance Tips

Are you in the market for a new mattress? At Ivan Smith Furniture, you will find premium mattresses from industry-leading brands, like Tempur-Pedic, Sealy, Serta, and more. We believe that everyone deserves a good night’s sleep, which is why we strive to provide our customers with superior quality products at conveniently low prices. Whether you are looking for an innerspring, memory foam, or even a hybrid mattress, you can expect every one of our products to provide you with comfort and support for years to come. To ensure that you are getting the longest life from your mattress, review some of our simple mattress maintenance tips below.

Use Your Mattress Set Exclusively for Sleeping

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is important to remember that your mattress was made specifically for sleeping. While it may be tempting at times to use your mattress as a couch, a chair, or even a trampoline, using it for anything beyond sleeping may cause it to wear down well before its time. When you use your mattress for certain activities, such as sitting or jumping, it puts your mattress under a large amount of direct pressure. While our mattresses are all exceptionally strong and durable, they were designed to support weight that is more evenly distributed. When you put too much direct pressure in one specific spot, it can cause your mattress to become dented or misshapen. 

Regularly Clean Your Mattress Set

While most people realize that they need to regularly clean their bedding, many don’t realize that they need to clean their mattress set as well. About once or twice a month, you should remove all your bedding and inspect your mattress. If you notice any spots or stains, treat the area with a mild solution of soap and water. You should also vacuum the surface and seams of your mattress set to remove any dust or debris. To take your mattress cleaning to the next level, you may even want to sprinkle your mattress with a bit of baking soda before vacuuming. This will remove any odors and leave your mattress smelling nice and clean.

Air Out Your Mattress a Few Times a Week

Believe it or not, leaving your bed unmade can actually increase your mattress’ lifespan. That is because your mattress accumulates moisture every night, and when you make your bed, that keeps the moisture locked in. Excessive moisture is known to attract dust mites, and it could even lead to mold and mildew problems over time. To minimize humidity and moisture accumulation, we recommend that you air out your mattress at least a few times a week. When airing out your mattress, remove your bedding and open any blinds or window shades, allowing your mattress to be exposed to direct sunlight. The warm sunlight will wick away moisture, leaving your mattress fresh and dry.  

Make Sure Your Mattress Has Proper Support

Every mattress requires some type of support, whether you are using an innerspring mattress set or a memory foam mattress. Without sufficient support, your mattress may sag or bend under your weight, which will cause it to wear out well before its time. While innerspring mattresses require a mattress foundation or box spring, many memory foam mattresses can be sufficiently supported by the wooden slats on a platform bed. If you are unsure which type of support your mattress needs, feel free to ask one of the professionals at our furniture and mattress store.

We hope these simple mattress maintenance tips will help you take better care of your mattress, in the present as well as the future. If you have any questions or would like to browse our mattress selection, we encourage you to stop by Ivan Smith Furniture today. You can visit us in De Ridder, LA or at any one of our furniture and mattress stores located throughout the Southern US.

Types of Sofas: Which One is the Right Fit for You?

Shopping for a new sofa can be tricky. With sometimes hundreds of options to choose from, how do you know which one is the best fit for you? At Ivan Smith Furniture, we want to add ease to the furniture shopping process by helping you better understand the different types of sofas that we offer. Whether you are looking at a cozy loveseat or a spacious sectional sofa, we want to help you understand the benefits and characteristics of each sofa type. For your convenience, we have created this simple guide to help you determine which sofa is the right choice for your home.

Stationary Sofas

A stationary sofa is the most traditional type of sofa that we offer. Stationary sofas are generally made to seat three people and they come in a wide variety of colors and styles.

Reclining Sofas

Reclining sofas are adjustable, allowing you to alternate between upright and reclining positions. These sofas offer supreme comfort and luxury, making them perfect for afternoon naps and lounging with friends. Our home furniture store offers manual reclining sofas, as well as power reclining sofas that you can adjust with just the touch of a button.

Loveseats

Loveseat sofas can comfortably seat two, which makes them the perfect choice for small living rooms and apartments. These furniture pieces offer the same amount of style and comfort as our larger sofas, but in a more compact size.

Sectional Sofas

Sectional sofas offer ample seating space, and they are well-suited for large families or people who entertain often. These sofas are made of multiple independent pieces that can be removed or rearranged as needed, in order to meet your home furnishing needs.   

Sleeper Sofas

Sleeper sofas, or sofa beds, are multipurpose furniture pieces that can be used for both sitting and sleeping. These versatile sofas are great for studio apartments or accommodating overnight houseguests.

Now that you know more about our diverse sofa selection, it is time to start shopping! When you are ready to purchase a new sofa, come to Ivan Smith Furniture and see all the affordable products we have to offer. You can shop with us in Center, TX or at any one of our other home furniture stores located throughout the Southern US.