The design mistake flattening your living room
Imagine a city skyline with its dynamic range of heights – tall towers, mid-rise blocks, tiny corner cafés.
Now picture someone flattening it into a single-storey sprawl.
That’s your living room.
A suburb of squat.
I see this constantly: low sofa, low coffee table, low TV unit.
Welcome to what I call “Bottom-Heavy Syndrome” (BHS).
How To Diagnose Your Room Has BHS
◻️ All your furniture is on the floor. Nothing stands up straight.
◻️ The upper half of your walls is completely empty.
◻️ Your eyes don’t move around at eye level. They go straight to the bottom.
The fix is surprisingly simple: add height.
Design your room like a skyline:
🏙️ Towers = high curtains, pendant lights, tall bookcases (anything that takes your eye above eye level)
🏘️ Mid-rise = wall art, floor lamps, tall plants, mirrors, wall sconces
🏠 Low-rise = sofa, rug, coffee table, ottomans
Before and after of the room I showed earlier.
Let’s Fix Another Room
Everything in this living room is huddled down like it’s avoiding detection.
Which is a shame because there are some really beautiful pieces here.
A mustard Togo sofa, an Arco floor lamp – but they’re all fighting a losing battle against the Big Empty above.
Slice the room in half horizontally, and what’s in the top? Absolutely nothing.
That blank wall is lazy.
Then there’s the floor gang:
The Togo sofa doesn’t have legs
The mirror’s on the floor. The artwork’s on the floor.
The plant beside the sofa is as tall as a toddler.
Even a stack of shoeboxes
So, how do we fix this?
👉 Levitate, don’t congregate.
Hang the mirror. Float the art. Get taller plants. The more air between your stuff and the floor, the less your room feels weighed down by despair.
I’m not saying you can’t have a low-slung icon like a Togo sofa.
But if you go low with anchor pieces, you must counterbalance with height elsewhere.
See these rooms? Notice how they nail the balance.
It’s not about avoiding low furniture – it’s about getting your eye to move around the room.
Your One Minute Fix:
Right now, look around. Raise just one item.
Move that sad plant off the floor and onto a stool/stand
Hang that print that’s been leaning against the wall for months
Place a tall vase with arrangement on a surface
👇 So you fixed the height issues…but your space still looks off?
These 10 design mistakes could be the culprit.
Cheers,
Reynard