Room Arranging Bring
All the Comforts of Home

Successful room arranging makes your interior spaces comfortable to be in, and with clever planning can transform a room into something visually exciting, drawing attention to the places you want attention and down playing the others.

It is a good idea to play around with different ideas on paper before you start the heavy lifting. This way you will gain ideas on the direction you want for the room, the needs of the room and what is going to fit.

I often see people try room arranging (on paper) only to arrange furniture lined up around the perimeter of a room, because what happens is, on paper you are looking at a two-dimensional drawing and forget what is possible in a real room situation.

A lot of the time what looks good on paper needs to be tweaked here and there and this allows us the freedom to break the rules and think outside the box.

Make a note on what the obvious traffic patterns are and plan accordingly by leaving at least two and a half feet for the flow.

After determining the traffic flow of the room, decide what the focal point of the room is. It is usually what your eyes are drawn to upon entering. It could be a handsome fireplace, a stunning view out the window, or one can be created with a favorite piece of furniture.

Arrange the most important and most likely the largest piece of furniture for the primary activity of the room around this focal point,

• a seating grouping for in the living room,
• the bed in the bedroom
or
• the desk in a home office.

Evenly distribute this arrangement with enough space around them for balance and then add the smaller occasional pieces.

The bottom line for room arranging is comfort and convenience so that you may use the room as you intended.

• Is there a place to set your book if you read in this room?
• Are the tables within comfortable reach (six inches from the arms of the seat) to set down a cup of tea?
• If the room is used for company is there enough seating to encourage conversation?

A large room can be divided to distinguish different activities with a piece of furniture, a screen, or with area rugs to make the room function better.

Accent pieces can create secondary uses for a room,

• a chair in the corner of a bedroom can become a reading nook,
or
• occasional chairs can be pulled up to a table for an impromptu game of cards.

Keep the scale of your furnishings in proportion to each other. You don't want a delicate little accent table next to a big overstuffed chair, and putting a lot of small scaled pieces in a large room will only make the space appear miniature and cluttered.

Mixing shapes in room arranging,

• (a round coffee table with rectangular end tables and a boxy sofa)

• like the use of draperies in a dining room where most of the furniture is going to be wood or "hard.”

Floating your furniture in a room also adds interest and gets away from the “waiting room” look of lining up furniture along the walls. Be sure in doing so you are not blocking the traffic flow or view.

Use your judgement, you don’t really want to walk into a room to the back of a big sofa and have to walk around it.

A pair of low upholstered ottomans or occasional chairs might work better, or try a French style settee where you are can appreciate the silhouette instead of the sometimes boxy shapes upholstered sofas.

In a long and narrow room placing some pieces on an angle will shorten the room visually but only if your room allows. Angled furniture takes up more space but works nicely if you are short on furnishings. Create a “V” shape with your seating in front of your focal point.

Your room arranging doesn't have to conform to the way the rooms were meant to be. If you feel what was intended as a dining room would work better for you as a family room then set it up in that manner.

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