Expertises: Art, Do it yourself, Home improvement, Design, Craft
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Arranging furniture has never been an easy task. We tend to shop uncontrollably up to a central point where we find it difficult to organize and place all those items around the house. Every piece of furniture can influence a room, from the way it is perceived to its atmosphere, functionality and overall design line. Every furniture arrangement influences the entire room so if you get tired someday and don't really afford a real makeover you can try mixing things up and changing the layout of your room for a fresh look. Here are some Furniture Arranging Tricks And Diagrams to help you in your endeavors meant to revive your home. We will focus on the living room set up as it is the focal point and heart of any home.
The first thing you should try before starting to move things around is simulating your desired room on a computer. Try the room planner at Urban Barn, Arrange a Room at BHG, or the room planner at Pottery Barn. They are very easy to use and permit you to recreate your room and then arrange it in different ways so you can get an idea on how certain changes will influence your room.
Now you can start by cleaning the room from all the unnecessary clutter and small items. Leave the big volumes though because they are the ones that generate the entire design scheme. Try and move them around until you find that perfect position for every item. Try to create more than one focus point in the room rather than simply arranging the furniture aligned with your walls. The diagram below is such an example where several interest points and sitting areas were created.
If you are tired of the classical "everything aligned" scheme, go diagonal all the way! A diagonal arrangement offers a wider angle of perception of the room and a more dynamic feel to it. If you can not really place every single item diagonally try moving the smaller ones for creating different angles and generating alveolar spaces.
You can still make your room cozy and functional even if the space is very small. It's just a matter of rearranging the smaller items of furniture and positioning them to generate intimate functional spaces.
There are many possibilities for arranging a small living room with just 5 pieces of furniture or less. But we recommend you to use small items and to avoid big heavy furniture pieces. As you can see in the diagrams below, although you can find a proper arrangement, the room seems suffocated by the big sofas.
A very important aspect for every room is natural light. The lack of it limits the room, making it feel cluttered and suffocating. Limit yourself to low pieces of furniture placed in front of the windows. Keep the walking corridors and paths unblocked and clear all the time to let the room be visible from the adjacent room and make it thus seem larger.
Clutter is your biggest enemy so try and sort out all your furniture pieces and decide if they are used properly or if you could rethink their purpose all together and upcycle them. They might serve perfectly in another room or context. Sometimes less is more so don't be afraid to give up on old items and let your room breathe.
Bigger rooms allow multiple variations for furniture arrangements and possible multiple entries into the room so the furniture must be kept out of those paths and the visibility not blocked. You can create one big ample space with every item in direct relation with the other pieces. The 4 5 and 6 diagrams offer multiple sitting spaces including spaces destined especially for the coffee ritual.
Moving on to spaces that include an additional function like a desk or a dinning table you can choose to adopt a separative attitude and place the furniture with its back to these spaces or one of communication where every piece is in a visual relationship with the others.
Don't arrange your furniture accordingly to the TV placement. It should never be your focus point. “You don’t want to ignore the fireplace or something else that would architecturally be a natural main element in the room,” “It benefits the layout to group main items together.”
Couches should be surrounded by a little space.“Placing a couch even a few inches away from the wall will create a little breathing room and make a space seem larger.”
Arranging furniture in a long and narrow living room with many entrance doors, archways and windows might seem complicated but simply keep the furniture away from the walls and use the length of the room to your advantage.
In the end we recommend you a few other articles regarding small spaces and methods of un-cluttering your home we hope you will find helpful.
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Image Credits: Pottery Barn, CafeMom, Fred Gonsowski Garden Home, How to Decorate
