Furnishing a Los Angeles Apartment: Indoor-Outdoor Living, by the Plan

Los Angeles apartment stock is unlike any other American city’s: low-slung courtyard buildings from the twenties, dingbats from the sixties, and a new generation of mid-rise towers, all organized around one idea — that the boundary between indoors and out should be thin. The floor plans show it: patios and balconies on nearly every unit, living rooms that open rather than enclose, light from two sides more often than one.

Furnish low, in deference to the light

LA apartments receive horizontal light for most of the day, and the furniture tradition that grew up here — low-slung, long-lined, unfussy — exists to keep that light moving through the room. Choose sofas and credenzas that sit low; keep tall storage to the entry side of the plan. A room that preserves its sightlines in Los Angeles feels twice its drawn size.

The courtyard plan has two fronts

In courtyard and dingbat buildings, living rooms often have openings on opposing sides — a front window and a patio slider. The furnishing consequence: there is rarely a spare wall. Float the seating instead of pushing it to the perimeter, let the sofa back define the dining edge, and treat the rug as the room’s true walls. The floor plan makes this obvious; the showroom never will.

The patio question, answered

The patio or balcony on an LA plan is not an amenity; it is the apartment’s second living room, usable essentially year-round. Scale its furniture as seriously as the interior — a proper lounge pair, a low table, a planter with structure. An unfurnished patio in this climate is square footage surrendered.

Materials that belong here

Pale oak, linen, leather that ages, woven fiber, matte ceramic — the materials of the California modern tradition remain the correct answers, because they were chosen for this exact light and this exact climate. They also happen to sit comfortably across Scandinavian, Japandi, and Mediterranean directions, which is why they anchor so many of our design styles.

Building by building

From Koreatown courtyards to new towers downtown, Los Angeles repeats its floor plans block after block. Browse the Los Angeles buildings in the archive and order a furnishing plan composed for your exact unit — patio included.