Ask an interior designer their thoughts on L-shaped sofas and the response (at least according to Pallas Kalamotusis of Studio Krokalia) might be exactly what you expect: “every client's dream and every interior designer's nightmare”. What's the reason behind this dichotomy? Well, as comfortable as they might be for lounging, offering ample space to curl into them and stretch out, they are simply not as attractive as a classical sofa. L-shaped sofas don't have the range of options design-wise that a normal sofa does and they tend to be large and quite ‘blocky’. But, as Pallas states, “interior design is not only about beauty, it has to be about comfort also.”
She's right – and it's a statement echoed by most of the names on our Top 100, including our Interior Designer of the Year at the House & Garden Awards 2025, Rachel Chudley, who is firmly of the mind that there is no point designing a space that you don't feel like you can put your feet up in. The funny thing about Pallas' statement about L-shaped sofas being an interior designer's nightmare is that she has one in her own house. “I think the thing to bear in mind is that the shorter part of the sofa which sticks out should always have a much shorter back, so you get a sort of perching spot at the end” she says of how to make them work, continuing, “this way if your sofa is protruding into your room (as it does right in the middle of my square drawing room) then you can use it from all sides. In my case, it faces the dining area, it acts as a ‘play area’ for my toddler, whilst of course being part of the sitting room area. Without this detail I would have struggled to bring together three very different zones in one large square room. So as I said, there is always a time and place for it, if you are clever about it…"
Pallas is not the only interior designer who has one, and Sarah Peake of Studio Peake confesses that she loves one in the right spot. “The corner seat is my absolute favourite spot, cocooned within the cushions and my feet up. I had a brilliant one from Camerich in my old flat which I loved. I spent a lot of evenings on it in 2020,” she adds. However, as for when they work, Sarah does advise that “Getting the layout and scale right is key, they don’t work in all rooms. Counter intuitively, in my tiny flat it paid to go for something oversized, it tricked the eye into thinking the room was larger than it was. And the low back helped give the space a feeling of height.” So in a larger room, or one that doesn't need as much zoning as Pallas' open space flat, they don't work quite as well as a normal sofa would.
For interior designer Elizabeth Hay, who has used L-shaped sofas in more than one project, they tend to work best “in less formal areas such as TV rooms or playrooms.” Of course, in these instances the idea is that everyone is facing the same way, towards a television and so she adds that “an area I wouldn’t use one is in a formal drawing room or in an area which is solely used for socialising as they don’t create the most social of seating arrangements when seated on them.” Moreover, and perhaps linked to their very nature as something used for comfort, they do not tend to have a formal feel to them where something more refined, with more design options and some curve to it would.
As for decoration, Elizabeth says “I generally like to use a pattern on an L-shaped sofa so that it breaks up the large size of the piece and feels less “lumpy”,” whereas both Sarah and Pallas opted for a clean neutral on theirs. In a clock house project by Salvesen Graham, the design duo went bold with a patterned L-shaped sofa in the snug on a fuschia background, which becomes the entire focal point of the room. It makes perfect sense in a room whose sole purpose is comfort and lounging. Whatever fabric you choose, it turns out there is a time and a place for L-shaped sofas in interior designers' minds but it pays to be judicious about where you put it and how you use it and remember, as with most things, they simply don't suit every room.
