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Rowen Homes’ guide to a cosy autumn living room – plus 10% off sofas to help you get there
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Rowen Homes, the North East’s own luxury homeware brand, has shared its top styling tips for getting a living room ready for autumn, straight from the team at its Gateshead Metrocentre store.
It’s officially the season of candles, blankets, and cosiness. As summer starts to fade, they say the shift into cosy season doesn’t need a full redecorate, just a considered sofa choice and a few well-chosen layers on top. Here’s what they’d suggest doing first.
START WITH THE SOFA
The team’s first piece of advice is to always start with the sofa. It’s the piece everything else in the room gets built around, so it’s worth taking your time over. Rowen’s range spans different shapes, sizes and configurations, so there’s something to suit whether you’re working with an open-plan family space or a smaller snug.
The Tribeca Ash Greige Large U Shape Sofa is built for exactly this kind of room-anchoring role, with deep, generously filled cushions and a soft brushed upholstery that’s been given a 60,000 rub count, so it can take the kind of daily use a family living room actually gets. At 330cm across with a 176cm chaise depth, it’s designed for sprawling out rather than perching, and the ash greige tone sits neutral enough to build almost any autumn palette around it.
For something with a bit more personality, the Bubble Oatmeal Boucle 4 Seater Sofa brings a curved, playful silhouette with meticulous deep channel stitching, upholstered in a soft, textured bouclé that’s noticeably tactile even before you sit down. It’s set on a solid wood frame with high-resilience foam cushioning, giving a supportive rather than sink-too-far feel. Neither sofa is right or wrong, it comes down to how you actually want to use the room.
Elsewhere in the range, the Tribeca Chocolate Brown Velvet Large Left Hand Facing Chaise End Sofa brings a moodier, boutique-hotel feel in a durable EasyClean velvet, the Avienne Cream Chenille 3 Seater Sofa offers a softer, more compact option for a smaller room, the Bellina Brown Velvet Luxury 4 Seater Sofa comes with scatter cushions built in for an instant cosy corner, and the Alaina Cream Velvet Large Corner Sofa with Black Legs pairs the same EasyClean velvet with a sharper, more contemporary black-leg finish.
HIGH LIFE NORTH TOP TIP: Rowen Homes offers 0% Finance (more about that later)
SEE, SIT AND FEEL IT IN PERSON
Their second tip is one you can’t really do justice online: go and sit on it. Photos only tell you so much about a sofa, especially once fabric, depth and cushion fill come into it. That’s why the team recommend popping into Rowen at Metrocentre where you can try the pieces you’re considering, run your hand over the fabrics and see how the colours actually look under different light. The Customer Experience team are on hand throughout, whether you need help narrowing down a shortlist, styling advice for the room you’re working with, or a hand with an order you’ve already started online. There’s no pressure to decide on the spot.
“There are so many things to think about when choosing a sofa, from the size and configuration to the fabric, colour and how you like to sit. Our team can talk you through the different options and help you find something that not only looks beautiful, but really works for your home and lifestyle.”
SAMPLE YOUR FABRIC AT HOME
If you’re not ready to visit in person, or just want to live with a fabric for a few days before deciding, the team’s advice is to order a sample first. Rowen offers free fabric samples across a wide selection of its sofa fabrics, including bouclé, velvet, chenille, and linen.
Browse the samples online, add your choices to your basket and they’ll land on your doorstep at no cost. Check them against your flooring, walls and existing furniture, and in both daylight and lamplight, since colours can shift more than you’d expect once the sun goes down.
LAYER IN TEXTURE AND SCENT
Once the sofa’s sorted, the team’s next tip is to build up the smaller details that actually make a room feel like autumn’s arrived.
The Marlowe Oatmeal Faux Fur Throw is a genuinely plush, ribbed piece rather than a token layer, sized generously at 130 x 180cm so it drapes properly over a sofa arm or the foot of a bed rather than skimming the edge.
The Samba Chocolate Brown Geometric Bolster Cushion pairs well alongside it, with a tactile woven geometric pattern and piped edge detailing that gives lower back support as much as it does colour, and the deep chocolate brown reads especially well against cream, beige or taupe upholstery.
For underfoot, the Geneva Sand Wool Linear Patterned Rug brings a soft, sand-toned base with subtle raised-line detailing, woven from 100% wool for warmth and durability that holds up to daily footfall.
And on the wall, the Cohen Neutral Textured Canvas Wall Art offers a large abstract landscape piece running from a creamy off-white base up to a dark charcoal horizon, with visible impasto brushwork and subtle metallic silver highlights running through the taupe sky above, all held in a minimal black floating frame.
Scent matters just as much as texture at this time of year, and the Aeolian seven wick gold scented candle is worth a look for evenings when the heating’s not quite on yet but the room still needs warming up. Its hammered champagne-coloured holder gives it a statement presence on a coffee table, and at 20cm wide with an approximate 20-hour burn time, it’s built for lingering evenings rather than a quick top-up of scent.
If you want to make a bigger statement, the XXL Hazelnut Cappuccino scented reed diffuser fills a larger room with a warm, coffee-shop kind of scent that’s hard not to love, helped by a 5000ml bottle and long black reeds that keep the aroma going without constant refills.
PLAN YOUR BIGGER PIECES EARLY
The team’s final tip is one for anyone with Christmas hosting on their mind already: don’t leave the bigger furniture decisions too late. Rowen offers a 0% finance option when you spend £1,000 and over, so you can spread the cost of larger investment pieces like sofas and coffee tables, and get the room finished without it all landing at once.
Ordering ahead also means you’ll have your new pieces settled in and looking their best well before December, rather than trying to style around a delivery date that’s cutting it fine.
Rowen, Upper Platinum Mall, Metrocentre, Gateshead NE11 9YP
Rachael Ellis
Head of Content
After gaining a first in her BA Media and Journalism degree at Northumbria University, Rachael worked at Newcastle’s leading regional newspaper with her stories being picked up in national and global newspapers. She spent two very successful years giving a voice to those communities across the North East who otherwise…
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