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Practical, Stylish Living Room Arrangements
by Veronica Smith
When decorating your home, choosing the proper placement for your furnishings can make or break your overall decorating scheme. Living room arrangements should be designed to offer plenty of walking space within the room, without giving the overall impression of being cramped or crowded. The furniture in the living room should also be placed with thought given to how people utilize the room, and how the various pieces of furniture are used together.
Evaluating the Room
Before you start to rearrange the living room furniture, take some time to really look at the room. Determine the room's natural focal point, and map out the pathways through the room. You always want to keep the entryways to the room unimpeded, so that the room has a good flow. It is also important to take any large or important pieces of furniture into consideration. For example, if you have a large screen television, its placement in the room might determine or at least influence the placement of the sofa and chairs to provide for optimum viewing comfort. When considering living room arrangements, it can help to draw your living room onto graph paper, along with creating properly sized cutouts of your furniture. Using this method, you can move your furniture around the room on paper instead of lugging heavy pieces of furniture around the room.
Choosing a Good Furniture Arrangement for the Room
If you've always had your living room furniture arranged in a certain fashion, you might be ready for an exciting change. Many people just naturally assume that furniture should always be placed against the walls of the room. But in fact, you can create a much more interesting look by simply pulling the furniture away from the walls. For example, if you have a fireplace in the living room, position a loveseat in front of it at a slight angle, along with a small table or ottoman, to create a cozy sitting area. You can also use a sofa as a room divider, or create a seating area designed for conversation that is separate from a television viewing area on the other side of the room. These methods can create a very visually appealing look while adding more functionality at the same time.
Keep Your Traffic Patterns in Mind
Every room has certain traffic patterns that need to be considered when choosing a room arrangement. If your living room is located between the front door and other rooms of the home, there might be a significant amount of foot traffic along that path. If this is the case, try to arrange your furniture in a way that doesn't impede that traffic. You should also take foot traffic into account when choosing the location for your television. For optimum viewing comfort, arrange the television and any associated seating in a manner that won't cause people to be constantly walking in front of the television, thus blocking the view.
Add Accent Pieces
Once you have placed the primary pieces of furniture into the room, such as the sofa, chairs, and entertainment center, then you can place the smaller pieces of furniture in a way that seems to make the most sense. As a general rule, you will need either a coffee table or several end tables wherever you have a sofa, loveseat, or chairs. An ottoman is also a great choice to add additional comfort to a favorite chair.
Veronica Smith, a contributing writer and designer for AmericanArtisanArt.com, offers tips on displaying metal art work and abstract wood art.
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