Furniture: Three Versatile Pieces

When your inner decorator has the urge to buy but your budget won’t support a full-fledged shopping spree, narrow in on a few versatile furniture pieces. They can be used in several rooms or perform multiple functions throughout the home. Here are three furniture solutions that are worth the investment:

• Accent tables are among the hardest-working furniture offerings in the marketplace. But the console table earns the highest honors. This silhouette moves easily from one place or room to another, and performs in either with equal élan.

The console table can be tucked behind a sofa that “floats” in a room. Here, it’s primed and ready for decorative accessory display. The console table can double as a TV stand in the family room or at the end of the master bed. It greets guests when placed in an entryway. In an open loft or great room, try a console table with multiple shelves in lieu of a buffet or sideboard. In your home office, position the console behind your desk as an open-storage credenza.

The upholstered club chair is a go-to silhouette for your family room, great room or living room. For Louise Anne O’Flanagan, her “big comfy brown chair” is one of her favorite pieces in her family room.

Elsewhere in the home, an upholstered accent chair adds charm and comfort, especially in the master or guest bedroom. A chair with exposed, raised wood legs is an ideal choice, as it can make a room look larger and more open. Choose a fabric that complements your curtains and/or bed linens, and you’ll reinforce the room’s color palette and motifs. In the guest bedroom, an upholstered accent chair provides your guests with a private place for rest and repose; it makes an otherwise sparsely furnished room much more inviting.

Similarly, upholstered headboards are a no-fail way to “soften” a master bedroom that’s packed with too much matching wood furniture. Upholstered headboards bring color and pattern into the room, too, as many retailers in the category offer multiple fabrics. Catalog and online retailers Serena & Lily and Ballard Designs, for example, offer an assortment of styles; popular adornments include button tufts, nailhead trim and dramatic, Moroccan-inspired shapes.