There is a particular kind of pub seat that makes the rest of the afternoon negotiable. It has a little shelter behind it, somewhere to put a drink and a lamp that lights the table rather than your whole face. The appeal is not really the exposed beams or the horse brasses. It is the feeling that somebody has thought about what happens after you sit down.

That feeling travels home rather well. A living room becomes more inviting when a chair faces another chair, a surface is close enough for a cup, and the things on the walls belong to somebody rather than to a coordinated range. Such rooms can look collected and slightly irregular, yet feel entirely at ease.

Even the colour is negotiable. The most interesting examples are not all green, brown or firelit. Some have pink walls and sunshine; one began as a white new-build box. What they share is an instinct for how people might enjoy being in the room.

At the Old Parsonage in Dorset, the former home of Ben Pentreath and Charlie McCormick, the drawing room is pink, sunlit and crowded with things to look at. Brown ticking curtains and seagrass flooring provide a quiet base for blue seating, small tables, lamps and pictures. Pentreath described it as cluttered, supremely relaxed and filled with sunshine. In his photographs, the charm is in the relationships between the objects, rather than a single grand gesture.

This is a useful corrective to the idea that a snug must be dark and lined in leather. The Parsonage feels welcoming in broad daylight because interest gathers around the places people sit. In a more ordinary sitting room, a similar effect can come from a rug that gathers the seating, one lamp close enough to make a chair feel chosen, and a table that earns its place because somebody can actually reach it.

Russell Loughlan’s cottage in Deal takes that warmth in a more exuberant direction. Its sitting room has yellow walls, a red arch and vintage chairs; a pair of framed Japanese screens supplied the black, red and yellow colours that connect the scheme. He had carried those screens from home to home for around 30 years. Loughlan described the darker mood of his previous house as having a “Dickensian pub feeling”. In Deal, the layered, lived-in appeal survives in bright colour.

The screens matter more than the precise shade of yellow. They give the room a starting point with a history of its own. A picture, an old rug or a chair that has travelled through several addresses could do something similar at home. Choosing colours around one possession you love can make otherwise unrelated pieces look as though they belong together.

In a Tudor farmhouse in Suffolk, interior designer Sean Symington has made a sitting room deliberately less symmetrical than a formal drawing room. A botanical-print sofa faces a green one, with a pale-yellow footstool among them. Soft pink walls settle the contrast, while floor lamps give individual corners their own light. A club fender, an upholstered rail around the hearth, offers another perch when the room fills up. The result feels prepared for different numbers of people, not just a matching suite.

Symington said he wanted the room to seem as though it had evolved over time. The mixed fabrics and furniture make that ambition convincing. The lamps do some of the work too. A single bright fitting gives everything the same importance: the sofa, the laundry basket, the stretch of empty carpet by the door. Softer light near the seats allows the useful parts of the room to come forward while the rest sits quietly in the background.

A Berkshire sitting room by Salvesen Graham suggests a more exuberant version of the same welcome. Once a gloomy kitchen, it has become a family sitting area with a generously sized, brightly patterned L-shaped sofa. Rounded arms and a gathered skirt soften the scale of the piece. In front stands a mustard-coloured ottoman with a firm tray for drinks and storage below. Yellow appears again in the blinds and chairs, connecting the room without requiring all the fabrics to match.

The arrangement is generous for a practical reason: there is seating for a crowd, somewhere to put a mug and a place to hide the things a family room collects. The patterned sofa carries much of the visual energy, while the smaller repetitions of yellow give the room its rhythm. In a quieter sitting room, a rug or pair of curtains could carry the pattern instead.

A room assembled from pieces with different lives is more interesting than a new set made to look old. An inherited table beside a plain modern sofa can provide that contrast, especially when the table is used instead of treated as a display. The patina need not be precious. A coaster is compatible with character, and so is leaving enough clear surface for another person’s tea.

The clearest test of the idea comes in a two-bedroom London new-build. When Sarah Vanrenen and Laura Hanbury decorated it, they began with a bare white interior and the owner’s antiques, pictures and traditional seating brought from his former country house. There was no fireplace to organise the living room. Instead, a green bookcase displaying his Delft collection became its centre, while a large oil painting occupied the opposite wall. The existing sofa and chairs were kept and re-covered for their new surroundings.

The bookcase gives the eye somewhere to land. The repeated green woodwork connects the space. Objects with history to the owner prevent the newness of the shell from becoming the whole story. It is a high-end design with bespoke joinery, but its most persuasive decision came first: the designers worked with what the owner already had.

The principle travels to a far more ordinary flat or terrace. A low chest beneath a favourite picture, a bookcase filled with things you actually keep, or a window with a good view can make a centre for the seating. The sofa may have to remain against the wall, and there is little virtue in moving it if that blocks the route through the room. Turning one chair inwards or bringing a little table within reach may change more about how the room feels.

The television can stay in the arrangement too. A living room that works only when nobody watches it is not much use to a household that enjoys a film. Give the screen a place, then allow another part of the room to hold some attention: a lamp beside a favourite chair, a group of pictures or the bookcase itself.

There is only so much a photograph can tell you about whether a room is welcoming. The rest becomes clear on an ordinary evening. Does someone move the lamp to read? Is there a table near the chair people always choose? Can two people talk without hauling furniture across the floor? Those small adjustments matter more than any carefully staged collection of cushions.

A room ought to accommodate those changes. A chair comes closer when friends visit; the footstool moves when someone settles with a book. The arrangement need not stay perfect to feel settled.

By Sunday afternoon, there should be room for a conversation and for somebody who would rather finish a book. A chair turned inwards, the lamp switched on, a table with room for another cup. The pub has supplied the welcome; everything else can be your own.