Coziness Begins With the Right Furniture

There are many ways to achieve coziness in every corner of your home, given the right combination of colors, textures, ambience and space. Your furniture, too, impacts the degree to which your home feels cozy.

Inside the showroom of Strode’s Furniture, in Huntley, owner Bob Wozniak points out an arrangement that’s intimate and ideal for casual conversation. A plush couch sits at one end, with a loveseat opposite. A colorful chair that ties in with the sofa’s colorful throw pillows completes the look.

“You’re sitting across from each other, and if you bring in the sofas a little more, it’s an even cozier sitting area,” Wozniak says.

A cozy assembly boils down to your focal point. Maybe it’s the fireplace or the TV, or perhaps it’s a coffee table. Then again, it could be a single piece of furniture – like a cuddler couch, which looks like a loveseat but has one side deeper than the other.

The right accessories also contribute. Wozniak turns to vases, books, antiques or candles to warm up a room. In each arrangement, he looks for a pop of color.

“Whenever we’ve got a piece on the floor that has red in it, it sells in a snap,” says Wozniak. “It’s a much warmer color, and it goes with anything.”

Wood grains bring a warm, rich accent in their own right. American hardwoods like maple and cherry show very little grain, instead letting the warm stains show through. Woods like red oak or elm, on the other hand, are rough and grainy, with streaks of dark and light.

Wozniak carries a variety of high-quality, Amish-made dining and bedroom sets all constructed from real, solid hard wood – unlike most imported, big-box store furniture, which is often comprised from particle board covered in a veneer.

“The Amish join together wide boards to make a plank,” says Wozniak. “You can see the seam where the two boards meet, and then you can follow the seam through the top, and you can see the seam on the edges. If it’s veneer, you won’t see the seam on the edges.” ❚

Strode’s Furniture is located at 11707 Main St., in downtown Huntley, (847) 669-3500.