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Five Easy Steps For Arranging your Living Room Furniture
by Pamela Cole Harris
If you are hopelessly lost when thinking beyond shoving your
furniture against a wall, or if you've recently bought a
six-foot sofa for an eight-foot room, you need help! Here are
some easy tips for arranging your living room furniture in ways
that make the most of your space:
1. Measure your room. Draw it to scale on graph paper which you
can find at your local discount store. Use a ¼ in. equal
1 ft. scale. If you can't figure out how to draw out scale,
ask your know-it-all teenage son!
2. Mark anything on your room drawing that will affect the
arrangement of the room. Outlets, telephone, cable, light
switches, windows, doors that open in, the space between
windows, and the height of the window sills are all things
that should be measured and noted.
3. This is the fun part! Make scale paper cutouts of your
furniture (just like cutting out paper dolls!) Use the
cutouts to arrange and rearrange the furniture in your room
until you are satisfied with the result.
4. Select a focal point of the room. If you have a fireplace,
it will nearly always be the focal point. If you have large
bookcases, you might make those your focal point or you may
choose a sofa with a special painting hung above it. Orient
the remaining furniture and the lighting to highlight the
focal point.
5. Think about your guests when you arrange the room. The room
should promote conversation. Set up cozy areas with a couple
of chairs or a loveseat. Ideally, there should be 4-10 ft.
between your sofa or loveseat and chairs so that the space
doesn't seem cramped. If you move the pieces too far apart,
conversation will be difficult.
Other points to remember: leave 14 to 18 inches between the
coffee table and the sofa for comfortable leg room (Err on the
side of more space!). And make sure you have the traffic lane at
least 3 ft. wide to move from one area of the room to another.
Arranging your room on paper allows you to experiment with new
looks, new combinations, and new ideas before you move the
furniture itself. Not only when you come up with the perfect
arrangement for your room, but you'll also save a visit to the
chiropractor for your husband or furniture-moving friends!
Pamela Cole Harris is a writer, eco-decorator and author of
"100+ Wildly Imaginative Ways to Make Your Own Coffee Table - a
Handbook for Creatively Deficient Decorators." Visit her website,
http://www.homeandgardenmakeover.com for
her unique decorating
and remodeling style (and a free newsletter!)
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