This Is the (Unexpected!) Living Room Layout Designers Love for 2025
There’s something about planning the layout of a living room that feels particularly daunting, especially if you have tight space constraints. You need to accommodate bulky furniture essentials, like seating and storage, while also prioritizing functionality (will the room potentially double as a dining area, home office, etc.?). Luckily, designers agree that one specific living room layout will be all the rage in 2025, and it’s a sophisticated, symmetrical look that’s easy to pull off if you have the space.
As part of Apartment Therapy’s fifth annual The State of Home Design Survey, which launched earlier this month, our team polled 154 designers on their interior design predictions for the upcoming year — from the biggest up-and-coming pattern to paint trends. The survey even asked design pros to vote on their favorite living room configuration for 2025, and 45% preferred the look of two sofas facing each other.
At first glance, this might only seem feasible in a huge room, but the trend actually works particularly well in small spaces, especially with a narrow layout. You can place a compact sofa flush against each of the longer walls, mirroring one another, then center the setup around a fireplace or wall-mounted TV on the shortest side of the room. With the latter arrangement, there’s even the option to forgo a TV stand altogether to cut down on extra furniture. Or, you could flank the sofas with side tables if a coffee table can’t fit in between.
The key is simply choosing the right sofa scale for your home, like matching loveseats or settees in a small room versus two larger sofas or even sectionals intended to fill out a more open-concept space.
The sofas also don’t have to be identical, as seen in the image above, with one patterned style parallel to a simple neutral design. This room even has accent chairs placed in between, rotated in opposite directions to designate two separate seating vignettes. But you can simply ground the setup with a coffee table in the middle if you prefer to keep one larger sitting area. Just make sure each couch has similar dimensions, if you still want a somewhat symmetrical look.
However you implement this designer-approved layout trend, you’ll maximize seating and add a sophisticated, timeless appeal to your living room.
Further Reading
We Tested (and Rated!) All the Sofas at Ashley — Here Are the Best to Suit Your Style and Space
We Tested (and Rated!) Every Sofa at West Elm — Here Are the Best for Every Type of Need
See How a Stager Used Paint to Transform a 1950s Living Room
