How to Place Your Sofa & Loveseat

Furniture placement planning sometimes never takes place. Too often we buy new furniture or move from one home to another, furniture is shoved against the first empty wall, and we get used to it. Planning furniture placement takes a bit of time, but it can transform the way you live in a room and the way the room feels while you are in it. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

1

Measure your living or family room and plot the location of walls, windows, doors, niches, fireplaces, openings or any other feature onto the graph paper. Simply convert one foot in real life to one-quarter inch on the paper. Make the walls just over one-sixteenth of an inch thick to represent the four plus inch thickness of real walls. Be sure to include door swings and floor vents.

2

Mark the location of electrical outlets and wall switch plates, and indicate on your plan which switches operate any ceiling lights. These become important when positioning televisions and lamps, which often impact the location of sofas and other seating.

3

Place a piece of tissue paper over the base drawing of the room. Since many living and family rooms have open relationships with other rooms, it is important to keep these relationships in mind during furniture placement.

4

Identify the focal point of the room being furnished. This is usually a fireplace, a large window or a wall painted a different color. Often this is the direction you first look to when entering a room. Your focal point can also be the location of a television or entertainment center.

5

Using the furniture template, sketch in the couch shape parallel with and across from the focal point. Since the most common arrangement of a paired couch and love seat is an L-shape, sketch the love seat next to the side of the couch. This may position one or both pieces so that the backs are visible when you enter the room. With just these two pieces in position, check that pathways are not blocked.

6

Make several tracings, and position the furniture at angles or completely separated. Keep in mind that a good arrangement will provide a three-foot walkway between any furniture and any doorway. By moving furniture off the walls, you can visually expand a room.

7

Select your three favorite arrangements, and lightly sketch the walls on the tracing papers. Add the position and size of coffee tables, end tables, lamps, armchairs, large rugs, large plants and other furniture. Keep checking your pathways, and remember that fewer pieces will often make a room feel more spacious. An open couch back can be disguised by using a sofa table, and every chair and sofa need an adjacent table to place drinks.

8

Clear out your room, and try each arrangement in turn. One should immediately look and feel more comfortable than the others.