# How to Furnish a Maisonette Living Room: A Complete Plan With Sizes

**By Joy David** · 2026-06-18

![Family maisonette living room with orange L-shaped sofa, organised under-stair storage, and practical seating arrangement.](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1805/8667/files/maisonette-living-room-layout-orange-sofa-megafurniture.jpg?v=1781771216)

You have the keys. You are standing in a living room that is taller than anything you have lived in before, with a staircase climbing one wall and more floor space than a typical HDB flat. And somehow, the size of it makes the decisions harder, not easier. Where does the sofa go? How big should the TV be? Is one seating area even enough?

This plan answers those questions in order, zone by zone, with real dimensions so you can measure your own space and buy with confidence.

**Quick answer:** In an HDB maisonette living room, anchor the space with a 3-seat sofa, around 190 to 230 cm wide, against the longest solid wall. Position the TV console opposite at a distance that suits your screen size, keep the coffee table 30 to 45 cm from the sofa, and add a display unit or bookshelf to make use of the room’s vertical height. That is the spine. Everything else fills around it.

-   [Room overview and what makes a maisonette different](#room-overview)
-   [Zone 1: The sofa and seating area](#sofa-zone)
-   [Zone 2: The TV wall](#tv-wall)
-   [Zone 3: The coffee table zone](#coffee-table-zone)
-   [Zone 4: The display and storage wall](#display-storage)
-   [Zone 5: The entryway](#entryway)
-   [Zone 6: The staircase adjacency](#staircase)
-   [Budget allocation](#budget)
-   [Shopping sequence](#sequence)
-   [Frequently asked questions](#faq)

## What Makes a Maisonette Living Room Different

Most HDB executive maisonettes run around 130 sqm across two levels, with the living and dining areas on the lower floor and bedrooms above. The living room itself is typically open-plan or semi-open, and it shares wall space with a staircase. The ceiling at the double-height section can reach four metres or more above the lower slab, significantly taller than a standard HDB’s roughly 2.6 metre ceiling.

That height is the defining characteristic. It is also the thing that catches most buyers out. Furniture that looks perfectly sized on a showroom floor can read like toy furniture against four metres of vertical space. The corrective is not to buy bigger sofas, it is to go vertical with storage and display, use layered lighting, and be deliberate about which walls you treat as feature walls. Get those calls right and the room feels proportional rather than cavernous.

The staircase is the second factor. It divides the wall plane and often creates an under-stair void. That space is storage, a display nook, or a practical shoe cabinet zone, and it is one of the most overlooked square metres in the whole home.

## Zone 1: The Sofa and Seating Area

In a maisonette living room, you almost always have the wall length to take a 3-seat sofa, around 190 to 230 cm wide, without it looking cramped. The question is which wall. The default is the longest uninterrupted run, ideally opposite or perpendicular to the TV wall so the sightline is natural from a seated position.

Leave at least 70 to 90 cm as a main walkway behind or beside the sofa, enough for two people to pass without shuffling sideways. If you plan an L-shaped configuration with a chaise, note that the chaise extension typically runs 150 to 165 cm, so measure your room corner-to-staircase-newel before committing.

Fabric sofas in a performance weave or solution-dyed polyester handle Singapore’s humidity better than linen, which creases, and bonded leather, which can peel in a few years in a warm, damp climate. If you have young children or a pet, a tight-weave performance fabric is the practical choice. Top-grain leather is the durable upgrade if budget allows; it ages well and wipes clean. [Browse the full living room furniture range](/collections/living-room-furniture) to compare configurations and materials side by side.

One seating area is usually enough for day-to-day life, but if your household hosts regularly, a small accent chair or a pair of ottomans near the staircase creates a secondary conversation pocket without committing to a full second sofa cluster.

## Zone 2: The TV Wall

The TV wall in a maisonette has more height than a standard flat, which means a wall-mounted TV at standard eye level can look adrift beneath metres of empty wall. The fix is a TV console that is wide enough to anchor the composition, plus something vertical above or beside the screen: a floating shelf, a tall display unit, or a framed panel that carries the eye upward intentionally.

Comfortable viewing distance is roughly 1.5 to 2.5 times the screen’s diagonal. If your living room is deep enough to allow 3 metres between sofa and screen, a 65-inch TV sits well. In a shallower room, step the screen size down rather than pushing the sofa too close.

[See the TV console range](/collections/tv-console) to find consoles wide enough to balance a tall wall. Look for one with closed storage at the base. Cable management and media boxes need somewhere to live, and in an open-plan living room, the clutter shows from every angle.

## Zone 3: The Coffee Table Zone

The coffee table sits 30 to 45 cm from your sofa’s front edge. That gap lets you reach your cup or put your feet up without the table feeling like an obstacle course. Standard coffee table height is 40 to 45 cm, which puts it roughly level with sofa seat cushions, comfortable without forcing you to hunch.

In a larger maisonette living room, a round or oval table often works better than a rectangular one. It is easier to navigate, reduces the number of sharp corners if you have young children, and softens a space that can otherwise read as very rectangular. A sintered stone top resists scratches and heat and survives spilled drinks with a wipe; tempered glass looks open and light but shows every fingerprint.

[Explore coffee tables](/collections/coffee-table) with dimensions listed so you can cross-check against your room measurements before you order. If your floor plan is generous, consider pairing a main coffee table with a smaller side table beside the sofa for everyday use: remotes, phones, and the things that accumulate at arm’s reach.

## Zone 4: The Display and Storage Wall

This is where a maisonette gets to do something a 4-room flat cannot. One full-height display unit or bookshelf on a long wall uses the vertical space productively and gives the room visual weight that stops all the furniture from floating at floor level. A unit that reaches 200 to 220 cm or more draws the eye up and makes the double-height ceiling feel intentional rather than just large.

The practical argument is equally strong. A maisonette is bigger than a typical HDB flat and most families use that space across the full home, which means more books, more toys, and more electronics to tuck away. Open shelving on the upper sections, closed doors below: that combination lets you display a few well-chosen objects without the whole unit becoming a dumping ground. [Browse display units and bookshelves](/collections/display-unit-bookshelf) and filter by height to find options that actually work against a tall wall.

Material matters here. Solid wood handles Singapore’s humidity cycles better than particleboard, which can swell and blister at exposed edges over time. Engineered plywood is the middle ground: more stable than raw particleboard, more accessible in price than solid hardwood.

## Zone 5: The Entryway

A maisonette front door typically opens directly into the living room or a small foyer. Either way, the entryway is one of the most used square metres in the home and one of the least planned. A shoe cabinet here is not a luxury. In a family home, it is the single most effective way to keep the living room from looking chaotic from the moment you walk in.

A standard HDB main door leaf is around 0.9 m wide, which is generous enough for a slim shoe cabinet to sit beside it without blocking the swing. Bench-top cabinets let you sit to remove shoes; taller cabinets with a thin profile store more pairs without projecting far into the walkway. Under-stair storage, if the staircase lands near the entry, is a natural extension of this zone.

## Zone 6: The Staircase Adjacency

The wall beside and beneath the staircase is the most architecturally interesting surface in a maisonette living room and frequently the most underused. Options depend on the geometry: a void under a straight staircase can house built-in shelving or a compact study nook; a closed-string stair with a solid soffit below can take a console table and a few wall-mounted shelves above it.

What you want to avoid is treating it as dead space and leaving it blank. A blank staircase wall in a room this size reads as unfinished. Even a series of framed prints, a tall plant, or a narrow console with a table lamp does the work of claiming the space.

If you are considering a reading chair or a secondary work spot beside the staircase, check the clearance to the bottom tread. You need at minimum 70 cm between any seated furniture and a traffic path; 90 cm is better if children will be running between the staircase and the sofa cluster.![](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1805/8667/files/megafurniture-orange-sofa-maisonette-living-room-plan.jpg?v=1781771216)

## Budget Allocation for the Living Room

First-home buyers at the maisonette stage should resist the instinct to buy everything at once and fill the room immediately. A better sequence is to buy the large anchors first, such as the sofa, TV console, and coffee table, live in the space for a few weeks, then make considered calls on storage and display pieces based on how the room actually flows with real daily use. The empty corner you expected to need a unit in might actually be where everyone naturally walks; the wall you dismissed might be the best feature wall in the home.

Broadly, the largest single spend should be the sofa. It takes the most daily load and the worst quality shows fastest. The TV console and coffee table are mid-range decisions. Display and storage units are where you can stage purchases over the first year without the room looking bare in the meantime.

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> Source: [Megafurniture](megafurniture.sg/blogs/articles/how-to-furnish-a-maisonette-living-room-a-complete-plan-with-sizes)