Furniture Arrangement

Arrange your room with furniture as your obedient servant, rather than the
other way around –

Here are some pointers for you to follow:

• Function and Ease - Think of how you and the people who live in your home, or come to visit, use your room and spaces. It’s all about common sense - creating ease of movement, practical and easy function, and heaps of flowing, comfortable and highly user-friendly livable space.

• Arranging your furniture becomes much easier once a focal point in your room is established. Your main furniture pieces are best directed towards your room’s focal point, keeping the major traffic areas open and easily flowing. You should aim to have a balance of furniture items around your room.

• You should be decisive and even brutal – determine whether your available furniture satisfies the function you have planned for the room. If a piece isn't working or if it's too large or too small for the size of your room, get rid of it or exchange it with something else around your home that may be more appropriate.

• Arrange your sofas and armchairs cozily and intimately facing each other, around a coffee table perhaps, to encourage interaction, conversation, eye contact, fun and laughs.

• If you have a fireplace, it’s the perfect place around which to arrange your sofas and armchairs. There’s nothing more relaxing and mesmerizing than curling up on your sofa, with a glass of wine, cup of coffee or hot cocoa, nestling into a cuddly cushion or throw rug, and sharing a great conversation with a special person, while you both watch the flames dance and the embers crackle and burn.

• Avoid arranging your sofas and armchairs all facing the TV screen as if in worship-like theatre-style. Unless, of course, it’s a specific purpose built home theatre room.

Hide the TV screen if you can by selecting a furniture unit that has doors that can slide over or close when not in use.

Alternatively, if your wide screen is wall mounted, you could place an attractive cupboard unit of a height just below the screen, and display two statuesque vases on either side, or some other ornaments, to create its own architecture and detract from the sole focus on the screen.

• Also avoid arranging your sofas and chairs right up against the extreme outer most wall perimeters of your room, otherwise you will all feel like you’re waiting to be interviewed, or you’re sitting on the sidelines in a dance studio, school hall gym, or in a health practitioner’s waiting room.

• Consider the number of people who usually use your particular room spaces – on a daily basis, and also on special occasions when numbers grow. Make sure that seating in the entertaining areas of your dining room and lounge room match – or has the easy flexible potential for you to do so.

Try to have a balance, or have some flexibility with extra seating available for you to bring in from another room if the need arises. Make sure you have the space. You want to ensure that your space encourages as much ease of social interaction and comfort as possible.

Avoid the apologetic feeling of not enough room &=and climbing over each other to move and get comfortable – it’s a social downer.

Some rooms may really challenge you with their limitations – their sizes, dimensions, shape, lay-out, configurations – all that may make it difficult for you to achieve, if not next to impossible, but don’t be disheartened, do your best, be creative and inventful. Keep working the room! … You’re doing well! …

Use 3D Plan or draw your plans on paper or graph paper.


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