Furniture Arranging: Trip-ups and Tips!
Professional interior designers focus on details like coordinating colors, and using large furniture, accent pieces, and lighting to impact how a room looks and feels. But they get paid (on average) $6,500 for their ideas and input and that doesn’t include additional/new furniture, paint and other accoutrements! So, we collected a few tips from the experts about arranging the furniture and accents you already have, with a few minor additions, to maximize the beauty and comfort of your interior decor!
Large Living Room Furniture Arrangements
The options for how to arrange living room furniture are nearly endless, but there are a few that look and feel better than others. The best way to position your sofa, chairs, accent tables, and more, generally depends on the shape of your room and its function. Try out one of these living room furniture arrangement ideas to find a layout that suits your space.
Start with the largest piece of furniture – usually the sofa — and place it facing toward the room’s most prominent feature, which could be a large screen television, a fireplace, a gallery wall, or picture window.
Smaller Seating and Accent Ideas
Next, place smaller seating items, such as chairs and/or loveseats, opposite or next to the sofa. Finish by filling in with accent pieces, including ottomans, coffee tables, end tables, and lamps. Two things to note: each seat should be within reach of at least one tabletop surface and beware of adding an item of furniture that is too diminutive compared to the other pieces. Scale the furniture up or down in size depending on the room dimensions so everything’s proportional.
Here’s one living room, arranged four different ways, complete with Christmas tree for a seasonal setting!
Smaller, Additional Living Spaces
In a smaller room, that is also living space while the temptation might be to push all the furniture against the walls is that actually creates an awkward space in the middle and emphasizes the room’s smaller dimensions. Instead, pull furniture in toward the center to create a more open feeling. Note: beware of adding a too-large-sized item of furniture that will overwhelm the room and the other pieces.
Long, Narrow Living Spaces
According to interior designer and blogger Janet Lorusso, everything starts with a plan. You can’t know where to wire the TV, or where to hang the art, or even what kind of window coverings would work best until the furniture arrangement has been decided. When challenged by a long narrow living space, Janet starts with a floor plan because moving around two-dimensional images of furniture on a piece of paper (real or virtual) is easier than dragging furniture to different spots in a room! Here’s a floor plan that Lorusso came up with to accommodate all of those needs for the space.
The Spruce offers reviews of five different interior design apps that you can use to figure out the best, most functional and attractive arrangement of your furniture. Some are aerial views, others are 3-D to get a real-life example of how things will look if you were standing inside. From Floor Planner and 3Dream to Arrange-a-Room from Better Homes and Gardens, you’ll be able to quickly recreate a room in your house and plan a new design.
Questions for the DIYer
Whether you hire a designer or DIY your interior design, here are a few questions to ask yourself before you start:
How do you typically use this room right now? How do you want to be able to use the room? What activities happen there? How many people do those activities involve? What kind of THINGS do those activities require? What do you love about the room? What do you find frustrating? The answers to these questions will start to give you information you need to decorate each room. For a family that wanted reading/play space for two to four people in a finished area of the basement, plus TV-watching space for four or more, and study/workspace for two.
Color, Function and Freedom
Homeowners need to plan the room schemes to maximize the functionality of the spaces so a family of five might opt for a design that incorporates weathered, vintage furniture and heavyweight, easy-to-clean fabrics to maximize durability and protect against wear and tear. Meanwhile, a young professional couple without kids might decorate with breakable accessories and white furniture/rugs throughout the house for anxiety-free luxe surroundings.
For some tips on how to combine colors in a room, architect Zahira Cury, founder of D.Signers, posted this video last year on YouTube. One of the bigger takeaways we appreciated was that the bolder colors need plenty of neutrals to balance things out and give your eyes a rest!
Model Home Magic in Crystal Valley
The designers who create the looks in the amazing model homes for the master-planned community of Crystal Valley use the latest in colors, fabrics, textures and materials. Come and explore the new homes surrounded by nature only minutes from the town of Castle Rock. With 10+ decorated models from Richmond American Homes, Kauffman Homes, Century Communities and D.R. Horton, the ranch and two-story options here are priced from the $400s.
