How to Arrange Living Room Furniture

If your present furniture arrangement seems stale, put some pizzazz into your living room.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Scissors
• Pencils
• Erasers
• Graph Papers
• Pencil Sharpeners
• Metal Measuring Tapes
• Rulers

1. With a tape measure, find the dimensions of the room. Draw the outline to scale on graph paper. A typical scale is 1/4 inch equals 1 foot.

2. Mark anything that would affect your arrangement: outlets for electricity, telephone and cable; light switches; windows; doors that open into the room; space between windows; and sill height.

3. Make scale paper cutouts of your living room furniture and shift them on the room drawing as needed until a likely arrangement emerges.

4. Select a focal point for your room and subtly orient other furnishings and some lighting toward it. If there's a fireplace, it will nearly always be the focal point; other focal points might be bookcases or built-in shelving to house lovely collectibles, or a sofa with a striking painting on the wall above it.

5. Arrange the furniture in such a way that pieces viewed as a unit don't show dramatic variance in height and mass as the eye sweeps the room. When a high-backed chair is next to a low table, boost the visual height of the table by hanging a piece of art above it.

6. Set up cozy conversation areas so that when you entertain, people can be seated and chat rather than having to stand. Examples would include two chairs separated by a low table, or two love seats facing each other.

7. Pull furniture away from the walls for more flexibility in creating conversation areas. For example, use a sofa to divide space in a room.

8. Position the sofa so it's at a nonperpendicular angle to any walls to create drama. Perhaps put an area rug and coffee table parallel to the sofa.

9. Allow a minimum of 18 inches (24 is better) for traffic lanes through the room. Lanes will probably meander if you have two or three conversation areas in the room.

10. Freshen the room occasionally by shifting the furniture and accessories for a new look. Switch tabletop bric-a-brac around, add fresh flowers, change potpourri, move pictures.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're comfortable using a computer, you might find home design software to be useful.