The most important part of designing the perfect room is the furniture arrangement. It will either make or break your room.You want to achieve the ideal balance between beauty and functionality. We'll try to break it down into simple steps that you can go through to create the room of your dreams. First things first, the tape measure is your best friend throughout this phase. Measure everything!
The first thing you need to do is to analyze the space by locating the focal point, the windows, doors and any areas that need to be free for circulation. Next, measure the space and sketch it out to scale, keeping in mind the previous points.
Next step is to mark all the areas where you can't place your furniture whether it's for circulation, pathway or just to avoid blocking any windows or openings.Always leave around 60-75 cm in front of windows, and around 90 cm for pathways or hallways.
After removing all the areas to be avoided, you're left with your design space. Start thinking about the purpose of this space and how do you plan to use it. You have the fireplace as the focal point naturally, so do you want to add a TV above it or do you want to focus more on making conversation?
Did you decide on the use of the space? Great, now we move on with determining the center lines that we would be working with in order to achieve a balanced and well arranged space. In this case, we have a center line for the fireplace and a center line for the window, so we'll be arranging our furniture in regards to these two lines.
For a more organized look we like to be a bit symmetrical. The focus here is conversation, so we add a sofa in the center of the window and mirror it on the other side of the center of the fireplace. Then, we add two comfortable armchairs to define the space and looking towards our focal wall.
Going further, we add the coffee,side and backsofa tables.Your coffee table needs to be at least half the size of your sofa and in the best case 2/3 the size so it won't look too small in the space. Leave 30-45 cm space between the coffee table and the furniture around it, so it can be easy to use and to move around. In areas where you enter or leave your seating area, leave a minimum of 70 cm for easy access and so it's not too tight or crowded.
We then add the rug. There are several options for rug sizing. The first option is to choose a size where all your furniture are sitting entirely on the rug (similar to the design area size). The second option is to have one where only the front legs of the furniture are sitting on the rug. Another option is to layer your rugs; by using both, a rug that fits the entire seating area and a smaller one which takes up the size of the inner area of the furniture where none of the legs are on the rug.
Last step, accessorize! You're done! you pulled of a great furniture layout with keeping in mind all the circulation areas and right sizes. Now that you know how to do it, you can play around a little and change some items to make it less symmetrical. Experiment with different table shapes and various arrangements.For a TV oriented room, follow the same steps and guides and adjust it to focus on the TV wall like the example below.
Easy enough huh? Try it out, and remember there are no rules, only guidelines, so don't be afraid of breaking the rules and experimenting with different options that are more suitable for you! Still having trouble with figuring out a layout you're comfortable with? Leave a comment below and we'll help you out!
Comments