Many interior designers dread the corner fireplace. Most people think of fireplaces as a gathering place in the home, the focal point for furnishings. But when it’s situated in the corner, arranging the room’s furniture to face the fireplace is awkward, to say the least.
[Cardel‘s] Kristina Hutchins herself owns a home with a wood-burning corner fireplace, and to deal with it, she followed the same advice she gives her clients.
“I really had to get my head out of the fireplace being the focal point,” Hutchins says. “That’s key. You have to rethink the space. We used [the fireplace] more as ambience than ‘let’s everybody stare at it.'”
If you do want to make the corner fireplace a focal point, [Dekora Home Staging’s] Jeff Goth suggests using a sectional sofa and hanging your TV above the fireplace to make room for seating. But, like Hutchins, Goth says your best bet is to disregard the fireplace when furnishing the room. “If the room is about conversation, then you might want to ignore the fireplace a little bit,” Goth says.
He also suggests floating furniture pieces in front of a corner fireplace. “Choosing smaller-scale chairs with shorter backs or see-through chairs, which lets you see beyond the furniture to the fireplace, works, too.”