Hello statement chair: Styling and budget are essential for a successful living room

There’s a new furniture focus for our living rooms, but styling and budget planning are essential to make it a success, writes Carol O’Callaghan

According to trendsetting oracles, the latest item livening up our living spaces and taking the focus off the television is an old, but new favourite. Hello statement chair.

Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just any old armchair. This is your majestic throne on which everyone entering the room lands their eye and where they’ll want to sit. For you, it’s making the ultimate statement about your design taste and setting the tone for your room.

First of all, let’s get our terminology right. It’s not an accent chair intended to complement décor. A statement chair stands alone offering definition and drama, so if accent and statement chairs were two personality types, the former is compliant, cooperative and part of the team, the latter more willful, independent and just a bit out there. Are you with me so far?

Happily, we’re living in a time when matching everything has gone out of fashion and a bit of eclecticism encouraged. This means choosing a chair with a strong profile or an upholstery colour which lifts its new environment, mustering your internal design filter in the process.

Aim to mix two opposite styles, so where furniture is traditional, disrupt it with a contemporary, bad boy design. The other way round works equally well: A contemporary room can be grounded and made more inviting by the stateliness of an elderly armchair with strapping design credentials of another era. Just think about the Earl of Chesterfield’s eponymous chair, still going strong after nearly 300 years.

Keep the filter in operation and beware of filling up on multiple statement objects. The arty framed work you choose last year and the purple sofa to liven everything up can, with the introduction of a statement chair, feel like everything is fighting for attention.

Finnish designer Mika Tolvanen’s Nakki armchair for Danish furniture company Woud, is a simple square form on straight legs with rounded upholstery, (€1,799 at www.finnishdesignshop.com).

This means having a beady squint at what already stands out in the room. It’s a tricky business when it’s your own home and there’s immunity to its visual impact.

Remedy this by enlisting the trusted friend with a good eye — we all have one — to look at it with a fresher perspective.

After that, and before being lured into an impulse purchase which misses the mark, sit down and decide on a few factors so you know you have the right model in mind when you come to buy.

Determine practical needs as this chair has the potential to make your wallet shudder, and it ought to serve as a comfortable seat, as well as a design marvel.

Earmarking a budget isn’t a bad idea — you don’t want to overextend yourself financially and be reminded of it every time you sit on your new purchase.

A budget will also narrow down your buying options but don’t think this is at all limiting. You have to filter your choices anyway or you’ll never make your mind up, so this is a pretty sensible way of doing it.

Now on to the styling bit. Choose a space in the room for your new statement piece where it will be noticed, and not stuffed behind the door simply because there’s plenty of room there.

Bo Concept’s Imola is upholstered in leather, roomy enough to curl up in, and features a swivel function making it ready to take for a spin (€3,771).

Do a little furniture shuffle before deciding. Again, recruit the friend with an eye for design to help out.

If your chosen chair is strong on scale, it might make the rest of your furniture look twee and skew the overall balance of the room, so make sure there’s proportion or the room could be more difficult to navigate day-to-day.

The chosen space also needs to provide functionality — so ask yourself if the sitter can view the television comfortably or admire the view out of the window as intended?

Or will they sit in splendid isolation, removed from the conversation ensuing on the sofa across the room?

Fail here and you’ll have a floaty chair abandoned by users after a few minutes rather than a functional seat. Looks can only carry it so far.

Mapping out the chair measurements on the floor with newspaper is an oldie-bu- goodie method to indicate what you’re dealing with.

Remember, the statement chair is designed to enhance the room, not provide an obstacle for the users.

The Adelphi chair combines a vintage style structure with wild upholstery (from Designer’s Guild POA).

This is another reason why you ought to confine your purchase to one standalone chair and not be tempted by a twin.