Epic Comfort in a Corner

You'd be surprised what miracles can be wrought where two walls meet

Takeaway ideas in this bedroom corner: Soft green wainscoting, a miniature gallery and a sitting area with comfortable upholstered chair and reading lamp. (Photo: Apartment Therapy)

There are four top spaces in any room: its corners.

Seriously.

As you may have noted in my previous post about a children’s book, I’ve been in love with corners for a very long time. Luckily I was a very obedient little girl, blessed with punishment-averse parents and was never put in the corner for punitive purposes. Or if I was, it is a forgotten trauma.

Make the Most of Your Corner Space

Corners essentially have two walls coming to a point, making the area feel protected and somewhat removed from the bustle. Corners are cozy and convey privacy. When you’re in a corner you can pretend the rest of the room doesn’t exist.

Courtney Shannon Strand’s perfect, if tiny, writer’s shed takes advantage of one corner with a comfortable reading chair. (Photo: Amanda Waltman Photography)

Corners work very well for private or single-person endeavors. For example, reading, laptop use, correspondence or catching up with friends on the phone. The edge of a room indicates that you are in harmony with the world around you and yet you need to distance yourself a little bit. The cozy fringe of life.

Amy Koon of South Carolina spends a lot of time in her she shed, Wood Winds. In cooler weather this corner is ideal for prayer time or reading, next to her electric fireplace. (Photo: Amy Koon)

How to Design Your Corners

There are many ways to make use of the corners in your rooms and a good place to start is with light. Got a corner window? Count your blessings and think about what you might do with a table or desk under or near it.

Furniture designed for corners, like hutches and desks, are great but if you can’t find anything like that don’t worry. What about a simple table that doubles as a writing desk? Use your walls to bring shape and interest: a photo gallery, floating shelves, pretty tapestry or a tall hutch resting on the table are all great options.

This tiny table set against a non-operating door creates a comfortable corner for study or correspondence. Think about your walls and add color, texture, or decorative items that help define the zone. (Photo: Mark Lohman | Styled by Sunday Hendrickson)

In many rooms, the corners are significantly underutilized, or they become a repository for not-so-great-looking storage. Find a cabinet or some closet space and clear it up. Is your home office dominated by little tables for your printer and office supplies? Consider going vertical and putting shelves over your desk to free up your floor space.

I fell in love with these hammock chairs a few years ago and put one up in one of the corners of our show shed at She Shed Living. Get creative with the way you furnish your corners, since they don’t disrupt the main traffic areas of your rooms. (Photo: The Velvet Chaise)

The corner also is a place for unique expressions of your personality. It’s small enough to reflect a side of you that may not work in an entire floor space. Maximalist, artist, experimentalist, spiritualist? Your corners are there to celebrate what you love best in life.

Two old doors connected by hinges make a sitting area shielded from neighbors and other parts of the yard. (Photo: Donna Jenkins)

The outdoors is also a fun place to create intimate and pretty corners. Donna Jenkins has a vintage greenhouse in her back yard and she likes to create areas for shooting her products or just for private use. She rigged up this simple folding screen with two old doors and some windows. It really adds a fun and photogenic dimension to her landscape.

Outdoor rooms, sitting rooms, game rooms … they’re all very nice. But if you don’t have room for a room, you should at least have a corner to call your own.