Whether you are moving into a new home or wanting to redecorate an existing room, how you arrange the furniture in a room can make a dramatic difference to your finished room.
Drawing your room and furniture to scale on paper is a great way to get things started. Cut the scale size furniture pieces out of a different coloured paper, then you can easily move the pieces around the room on the paper. Additionally, you can cut out pieces of paper the actual size of your furniture and lay this out in the room (I use newspaper stapled together). I find this method is very useful for clients to get a true feel of how the room will be – before the wrong sized furniture is purchased.
Some Tips:
1. Remove The Clutter
This will help you to see the true size and shape of your room. A room without clutter is more peaceful and relaxing.
2. Create a Focal Point
Place your furniture around a focal point. This can be your entertainment system, a fireplace or a large window with an attractive view.
When placing the furniture around your focal point consider the size of your room. For example, a small living area needs to have at least one conversational area but a larger living room may have more than one furniture grouping.
.
3. Keep the Room Balanced
Stand back and look at the balance of the furniture in your room. If all the larger pieces are on one side of the room the room will be unbalanced horizontally.
If most of the furniture is too bottom or top heavy the furniture will be unbalanced vertically. Using art, bookcases and tall indoor plants can help to balance the room vertically.
But be careful not to put all your art to one side of the room as that too can cause the room to be unbalanced.
4. Group Areas
This is especially required in larger rooms. Group furniture pieces together according to the activity for that space, such as conversation.
Use rugs to not only cover ugly floors but also to separate and define specific areas.
5. Allow for Traffic Flow
Allowing enough space for traffic to flow comfortably is very important in your design. We need to consider the width allowed for people to pass through an area and the direction they will take to get from one area to another.
Do you have doors in this space? Which way do they open? Do you need to allow for a door opening into the room?
In a living room take into account the television, you don’t want people to pass through in front of the television. Grouping seating in a tv area close together to help prevent somebody walking through in front of the tv.
With the sofas and chairs you need them to be close enough that everybody feels they don’t need to shout to be heard.
As a guide the coffee table is normally set a minimum of 60cm from the sofa. But if you like it closer or further away it is not a rule set in stone. I personally place my sofa 70cm away from the coffee table, if it is closer some people put their shoes against the edge of the glass top (one of those little things that drives me crazy!)
The television should always be distanced from the viewing seat by 3 to 4 times the size of the screen. This is especially true with the large screens we have today. Too large a screen can dominate a room (no matter what your husband claims).
A path for traffic is best to be at least 1 metre wide. The more traffic that will use that pathway the wider it will need to be, up to 1.5 metres wide is comfortable or as little as 75cms for infrequently used pathways.
6. Additional Activities
Is the space going to be used for more than one purpose?
Will the guest room double as a study area? Will the tv area double as a toy room? Will you need extra seating in any of your entertaining rooms for when you have guests?
Have furniture that will allow the room to function for the 2 purposes. For example, a coffee table with storage doubles as a toy box, a sofa bed allows room for a desk and when guests sleep over the desk doubles as a dressing table. An ottoman provides extra seating when guests are over.
Julie-Ann
How to Arrange your Furniture
Thanks heaps for all those tips 
Linear Mode
