Furniture Arrangement Challenges

Every home and floor plan has its unique furniture-arranging challenges. Rooms may be long and narrow or with odd nooks and crannies to fill, doors may swing into the way of furnishings, walls may be set at angles, all making it seemingly impossible to fit your furniture comfortably into the right spots. But there are ways to manage all these challenges effectively.

Before you start arranging furniture, consider how the room is used and how many people will use it. Identify the focal point in the room—a fireplace, view, television, etc.--and orient the furniture accordingly. If you plan to watch television in the room, the ideal distance between the set and the seating is three times the size of the screen. Therefore, if you’re watching a 32-inch screen, place your chair 96 inches away.

• Place the largest pieces of furniture first, such as the sofa in the living room or the bed in the bedroom. In most cases, this piece should face the room’s focal point. Chairs should be no more than 8 feet apart to facilitate conversation.

• Unless your room is especially small, avoid arranging furniture so it's all pushed against the walls.

• Symmetrical arrangements work best for formal rooms. Arranging furniture asymmetrically will achieve a more casual look.

• When arranging furniture, think about the flow of traffic through the room—generally the path between doorways. Don’t place any large pieces of furniture in that path if you can avoid it, and allow 30-48 inches of width for major traffic routes, and a minimum of 24 inches of width for minor ones. Try to direct traffic around a seating group, not through the middle of it. If traffic cuts through the middle of the room, consider creating two small seating areas instead of one large one.

• Vary the size of furniture pieces throughout the room, so your eyes move up and down as you scan the space. Balance a large or tall item by placing another piece of similar scale across the room from it. Avoid putting two tall pieces next to each other.

• Combine straight and curved lines for contrast. If the furniture is modern and linear, throw in a round table for contrast. If the furniture is curvy, mix in an angular piece. Similarly, pair solids with voids: combine a leggy chair with a solid side table, and a solid chair with a leggy table.

• Place a table within easy reach of every seat, being sure to combine pieces of similar scale. Coffee tables should be located 14-18 inches from a sofa to provide sufficient leg room.

Learn to Recognize Scale

It won't take you long to recognize a discrepancy of scale. When you see two small chairs opposite a large upholstered sofa, you'll know scale. When you see a really large coffee table in front of a tiny love seat, you'll recognize an error in scale. If you see an end table that is larger than the chair it's next to, or a dining room table in an area with no room to walk around it, you'll know it is all wrong.

Scale is something that you just know isn't right. If you have a piece that is out of scale, move it to another area, or store it until you find just the right spot for it