Why Our Living Rooms Are Finally Turning Away From the TV

For years, the living room has been built around one thing: the television. The sofa faces the screen, the coffee table holds the remote, and everyone sits in a neat row staring in the same direction. But lately that layout is starting to feel a little outdated. Australians are rethinking their living spaces, and the shift has less to do with what we’re watching and more to do with who we’re sitting with.
Data from Temple & Webster shows searches for modular, curved and sectional seating have climbed 24 per cent year-on-year, with modular sofa sales up an impressive 240 per cent. That’s not a small design fad. That’s a genuine change in how we want our homes to feel.
From screen-facing to face-to-face
The idea is simple but it’s a real departure from the open-plan, TV-first layouts that have dominated for the last decade. Instead of one big room oriented around a screen, homeowners are carving out smaller, more intimate zones within their open-plan spaces. Zones built for talking, for lingering after dinner, for actually looking at the people you’re sitting with rather than the show that’s playing.
It’s a trend with a familiar name if you’re old enough to remember it the first time around: the conversation pit. Popular in the 1970s, the sunken lounge was all about drawing people inward, physically and socially, into a lowered seating area that encouraged everyone to face each other rather than a wall or a window. It fell out of fashion for decades, largely because sinking part of your floor isn’t exactly a weekend project. But the feeling it created, cosy, connected and a little bit theatrical, is clearly one we’ve missed.

Milan’s influence, without the renovation
Fresh off the runway of Milan Design Week, this year’s furniture trends lean heavily into low-slung modular pieces, organic curves and tactile, touchable textures. Think bouclé, chunky wool weaves and soft velvets, paired with rounded silhouettes that soften the hard edges of a typical living room. The clever part is that you don’t need to knock a hole in your floor to get the look. A modular or sectional sofa, arranged to curve inward and face a central point rather than a television, can recreate that same sunken-lounge intimacy at floor level, just without the structural work.
Lucy Sutherland, Director of Insights & Trends at Temple & Webster, says the trend reflects a broader shift towards conversation-first living as we increasingly look for ways to disengage from our screens.
“As personal devices become the primary way we consume content, the TV is no longer the sole focal point of the living room. Furniture can finally turn inward again, creating spaces designed for conversation rather than passive viewing.”
It all points to the same thing: Australians are prioritising connection and flexibility in their living spaces, not just convenience. It’s a broader move toward homes designed for gathering, rather than simply for watching something together.

The soundtrack is going analogue too
It’s not just the seating that’s turning away from the screen. Vinyl records and CDs are having a real resurgence, and it fits neatly into this same shift toward slower, more intentional living spaces. A record player spinning in the corner encourages a completely different kind of gathering than a streaming playlist on shuffle. There’s the ritual of choosing an album, the ceremony of dropping the needle, and the built-in limitation of a side ending, which naturally invites a pause, a refill of drinks, a change of conversation. It’s a small thing, but it suits a room designed for people to actually look at each other rather than a screen.
A vinyl shelf or a stack of CDs also does double duty as a design feature. Displayed on open shelving or a low media console, they add warmth, colour and a lived-in feel that a sleek soundbar and hidden speaker system simply can’t match. If you’re leaning into the conversation-first living room, a record player is a natural, low-cost addition that reinforces the whole idea: less passive screen time, more presence in the room.

How to bring the trend home
If you like the idea but aren’t about to overhaul your entire living room, there are a few low-effort ways to work it into your own space.
Rethink the layout, not the furniture. Before you buy anything new, try angling your existing sofa and armchairs inward, toward a coffee table or rug, rather than outward toward the TV. It’s a five-minute change that instantly makes a room feel more social.
Go modular if you’re ready to upgrade. A modular or sectional sofa gives you the flexibility to curve seating into a semi-circle, which is the easiest way to mimic that pit-like, face-to-face feeling without any renovation at all.
Layer in texture. Bouclé cushions, a chunky wool throw, a low timber side table. These tactile touches do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to making a space feel warm and inviting.
Lower the eye line. Part of what made the original conversation pit so effective was its low seating height. You can borrow that feeling with floor cushions, a low-profile coffee table, or simply choosing furniture with a lower back and seat height than you’d usually go for.
Create a zone, not a room. You don’t need a separate space to make this work. A rug, a cluster of seating and a shift in orientation is often enough to signal “this is where we sit and talk” within a larger open-plan living area.
As we head into spring and the season of long lunches, backyard gatherings and visitors dropping by more often, it’s a timely trend to lean into. Sometimes the best update to your living room isn’t a new colour scheme or a fresh coat of paint. It’s simply turning the furniture to face each other again.