The most common mistake
When a room doesn't work, the furniture usually gets swapped. New sofa, different colour, one more rug. Sometimes that helps for two weeks.
Then the old feeling returns, because the problem was never the sofa.
Structure first
Before changing anything, describe the room in three sentences:
- Where do you enter, and where does the eye go first?
- Where do people actually stay — not where they should?
- What is in the way every day without anyone saying it?
Those three answers explain a surprising amount.
Design comes last
Design is the last step, not the first. Once the structure is clear, most rooms need less furniture, less colour and less money than expected.