Decorating With a Bookcase Behind a Sofa

If the size and layout of your room necessitate placing your sofa away from the wall, this may leave you wondering what to do with the empty floor space behind your sofa. Fortunately, you can use the floating sofa to introduce new functionality to your furniture, making different elements of the room work together for a more cohesive design. For example, a horizontal bookcase may look squat or isolated against a wall, but pressed against the back of your sofa, it provides both storage and other functions. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

1

Place a horizontal bookcase behind your sofa. Vertical bookcases are not conducive to this type of placement and are visually jarring behind a floating sofa -- stick with a horizontal case, and preferably one with a height not too dissimilar to the back of the sofa.

2

Add a small reading lamp to the top of the bookcase. This provides accent lighting for the room as well as additional lighting for when you're sitting on the couch reading. Unlike a floor lamp, a reading lamp doesn't take up much space.

3

Decorate the top of your bookcase with just a few small decorative items -- keep it sparse, and emphasize functionality. For example, decorate it with a small dish that you can use to empty your pockets of keys and coins after sitting down, or a set of decorative coasters that give you an accessible place to rest a drink while sitting on the couch. For a purely decorative addition, place a small vase of fresh flowers on top of the bookshelf and replace it when they begin to wilt.