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There’s nothing worse than buying a new sofa and discovering it’s not comfortable – but with a new mood in how we decorate our hanging spaces, nothing is left to chance. Gone are the tight ‘cocktail sofas’ that offer a stiff seat, replaced by deep, smooth seats designed to make you kick up your feet and spread out.

The idea manifests itself through a changing landscape of home decor, according to Los Angeles-based interior designer Mimi Shin. “These days, when space allows, there’s no longer a TV in the living room, so the sofa in the media room is much less formal and meant to be fun and communal,” says Mimi. But it’s not the only place in the home where this seating revolution is taking place – think conversation pits (or the emerging sofa trend for pit sections), deep window seats and corner daybeds, creating little pockets around the house where you can truly unwind, whether with family, friends or by yourself.

After all, it is one interior design trend we see not only as creating quiet spaces for solitude, but also to make your home more sociable.

“We love a deep window seat, a nook, and the kinds of luxurious spaces that invite our customers to relax either alone or together.” Gretchen Klebsexplains the founder of California-based architecture and design studio Medium Plenty. “You can prop up a bunch of pillows and play a game, curl up with a book, or go horizontal and take a nap.”

“The atmosphere is definitely meant to evoke playfulness; fun and relaxed,” Mimi Shin agree with. “When I’m sitting on a couch, I want to pull my legs up from under me when I’m with friends and sit back with my glass of wine.” However, Mimi draws her penchant for this design trend from some riskier sources as well. “I honestly looked quite closely at Wilt Chamberlain’s playroom for inspiration,” laughs Mimi. “I’ve used furniture that was used in the Playboy mansion back in the day, too — newly made, of course, but a couch that opened up into a shearling raft. I appropriate these slightly kinky ideas for a PG rating.”

The media room The project above is the perfect example of how designers like Mimi are turning to less structured and more dynamic seating so that spaces can be flexed to meet different occasions.

“This was originally an outdoor carport, open on the sides, designed by Marmol Radziner,” explains Mimi, “but the clients wanted a media room to show movies on a large pull-down screen to experience movies the way they were meant to be seen . I imagined the upper level of seating as the VIP lounge of a club that was really the place for their youngest children to watch movies above their parents.”

It’s a design reminiscent of the viral “play sofas” with stackable mattresses used to decorate playrooms and children’s rooms.

Perhaps the most interesting version of this idea is away from screen-facing applications. Take this for example window seat idea from a San Francisco home designed by Medium Plenty as a communal space for the family.

“The clients wanted the nook to be comfortable and suitable for many purposes, from playing games and puzzles, to reading and just hanging out,” says Gretchen. “We designed a gorgeous custom rotating oval table made of resin with Tuleste Gallery and Facture Studio, with a central base that squeezes between the custom seat cushions.”

“All of these areas invite the homeowners and their guests to sit and stay a while and to use these different spaces in many different ways,” Gretchen adds.

Outside of built-in furniture, the trend is finding a way into the sofas we choose as well. Such as pit sofasas well as dual aspect sofas, which change the way you interact with your room’s seating are becoming more common, with more amorphous elements of sectional designs coming through too. Mimi Shin’s own sofa, above, is a custom modular sofa that was inspired by Piero Lissoni. It is a series of boxes with different levels of heights and widths, so that each seat offers a different experience.

The open living room below, on the other hand, uses a modular sofa design for a super irregular seating arrangement. More than two aspects, this arrangement of a Camaleonda offers a unique perspective of the room from each seat.

Of course, these designs aren’t necessarily realistic for every home – while they can be applied to small spaces like nooks and crannies, they rely on more generous proportions than your average sofa.

However, there are small ways to introduce it into all types of homes. If you have a space that can handle a sectional, consider those with rounded slats for a softer, more communal feel, while daybeds in living roomespecially as a way to divide an open concept space, is an easier way to realize the idea.

Price: $3,947

A pit sectional is a modular style sofa that is like an L shape, but with two seats deep across, or sometimes with a gap in the middle.

View at West Elm

Price: $2,308.60

This curvy and comfortable day bed encourages you to lie horizontally.

Look at Anthropologie

Price: $4,675

This smooth sofa with two aspects lends itself to a relaxing living room layout.

View at Soka