A lounge in a hotel or restaurant is the hardest room to style. It is used all day, by people who did not choose the furniture, and it has to photograph well for the booking site. We recently styled one for a client in the south of the Netherlands. These are the rules we followed.
Zones, not rows
Guests want to sit with their back to something. Break a long room into three or four zones: a pair of armchairs with a bistro table by the window, a sofa group in the middle, a high table for laptops near the bar. Each zone gets its own light source, so the room still works when only one zone is occupied.
Choose materials that age well
Ceramic table tops, solid frames and fabrics with a high rub count are not a luxury in hospitality, they are the minimum. A bistro table with a ceramic top survives a thousand coffee cups. A bouclé armchair looks better after a year, not worse.
Light in layers
One statement chandelier in smoked glass gives the room its identity. Around it, table lamps and floor lamps at eye level do the actual work in the evening. Keep every bulb warm and match the shades: a camel cylinder shade repeated across the room ties the zones together.
Green that stays green
Real plants rarely survive a lounge. A large artificial fig tree in a heavy pot fills the corner that nothing else can, and it looks the same in December as in June.
The pieces below are the ones we used. All of them are available to order from stock.