My living room is too narrow

[Juliacat]

I love my house, it's just that my living room is too narrow. It's about 9 feet wide by 12 feet long, with either a door or a window in each of the four walls. We have it furnished with a full-length sofa on one long wall and the TV on the other long wall, with a bookcase and a stereo on the short walls. So you can just about watch TV in there and that's it, which is depressing. It's so small that we can't really have anyone over. The only thing we can think to do is find another home for the bookcase and put the TV in that corner and put a loveseat in where the TV is now, which would at least let people sit facing each other, even if their knees would almost be touching. But I don't want to move the bookcase, because it was my grandmother's, and because I like our books to be the first things people see when they enter our home.

Anyway, dh is nagging me to quit writing an essay, so does anyone have any ideas for how to make a narrow living room more livable?

[sapphire_chan]

This is how my narrow living room is currently. It's basically a dedicated video area with two passages surrounding it. I tend to do stuff like reading or knitting while curled up on the couch. The coffetable under the window can be moved in front of the couch if dh and I want to eat dinner while watching a movie.

The short wall you can't see has a keyboard with bench.

[Juliacat]

Your living room is strikingly similar to mine--we have a world map on the wall too! I wish we had an armchair though.