My 2026 DIY Resolution Is to Rearrange My Furniture

As someone who is known to care deeply about clothes, friends will tell me that they’re bored with their style and ask if I have any wardrobe makeover tips. The truth is, their problem isn’t as serious as they think it is. Before I start recommending things for them to buy, I’ll ask, "Have you tried getting a hair cut?" Sometimes, we need a fresh perspective using what we already have.

I think the same idea could apply to home interiors. It’s easy to get carried away with buying furniture or decor thinking it’ll solve our need for newness, when actually, moving things around is probably all it takes. It’s why for 2026, I plan to rearrange my bedroom and living room, which haven’t changed for five years, to bring new energy and flow into spaces that have become stagnant.

The most obvious playbook for optimizing the home space is feng shui. It’s the popular ancient Chinese practice that everyone seems to know about, yet rarely do I encounter people who apply feng shui principles correctly or at all in their homes. My guess is that there aren’t many furniture arrangement options for tight apartment layouts—which is why I think feng shui could be incredibly useful for making difficult arrangement decisions.

The art of feng shui goes deep, and I could spend months learning the ins and outs of creating balance. But for the purposes of rearranging my rooms, I’m down to experiment and approach it in a looser way.

The first order of business is getting my bed in a "commanding position," which means placing it diagonally from the door so you can see the entrance but not be in its direct path. (When your feet are pointed towards the door when you sleep, it’s spookily called "coffin position.") Off the bat, my bed needs to move to the opposite wall, for I am not yet a corpse. Feng shui also recommends a headboard (for stability purposes) and nightstands on either side (for balance and harmony). (It’s funny thinking about how, increasingly, a sign of a mature bedroom is a bed that isn’t flush against a wall.)

For the living room, it’s the couch that needs to be in the commanding position. Generally, in small apartments, I find that couch placement is determined by how large it is, and what wall can support its size. But perhaps this is the wrong approach. The feng shui principle of decluttering, to make space for energy to flow more freely, means that downsizing furniture pieces is probably a smart move. Should I get a smaller couch? Time will tell. Currently, my couch is in direct line with two doors instead of being diagonal from them, so I’ll need to reposition it against the adjoining wall, if it fits. The rest of the pieces—the coffee table, projector, chairs, and desk—will have to shift in service of where the couch lands.

Of course, this rearranging project could be an utter fail. (Such is apartment life.) But a tool that’s never steered me astray is the tape measure—so if my plans are not feng shui, I can always jot down dimensions and sketch a layout plan to drum up a refreshed perspective for my living space. I have to remind myself that this doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems, and that rearranging will always make space feel new without having to buy anything.

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