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Furniture Placement Secrets
by: Batsheva Vaknin

By BatSheva Vaknin


The easiest and most inexpensive way to invigorate the design of your living room is to rearrange the furniture items you already own. Furniture placement can be a daunting task, no matter how big or small the room. If you are someone who always figured furniture placement would be better left to professional interior designers, fret no more. These tips will help you embrace the task of balancing your sofa with your coffee table or armchair, and allow you to create peace and harmony amongst all your furniture.


Location, location, location
A room must be balanced. Specifically, the furniture in every room should be placed in a way that is pleasing to the eye and easy to maneuver around. If all the heavy furniture pieces like sofas, armchairs, entertainment centers and bookshelves are loaded on one side of the room, a room can feel like a sinking ship.


On the other hand, if you spread your furniture around the room haphazardly, a room can feel cluttered even when it is relatively empty. Think about the size of your living room in relation to the amount of furniture you have.


You can anchor the room by situating a large entertainment center against one wall, and then arrange all seating comfortably around that anchor. Or, anchor your sofa against a wall, add a small side table or a coffee table in front for convenience, and voilá! Your room is balanced.


Sofa Secrets
Using your sofa as an anchor, or as the focal point for your living room can be an effective furniture placement tool. However, modular sofas, or sofas with many components, can be too heavy an anchor, tipping the balance of the room with its bulkiness. A creative solution to this problem can be found in breaking up the pieces of the sofa.


Place the largest sofa piece against the longest wall of the room, then the smaller sections on the opposite side. If you have the smaller sections of the modular sofa face the long sofa at an angle, you will avoid that boring, boxy look that comes with having all furniture pieces pressed with their backs straight against a wall.


A fresh alternative to placing your sofa against the longest wall is to bring the sofa out, away from the wall. If you prefer this look and feel for your sofa placement, allow at least two and a half to three feet between the sofa and the wall for comfortable walking space. Less space is needed between chairs and a sofa, but always keep in mind walking patterns.


Go with the Flow
Imagine how you and your guests will maneuver in your living room with all the furniture in its proper place. For example, if there are two doors, you may want to place sofas and chairs in a manner that will allow passersby to walk behind or around the seating arrangement instead of through it.


If there is only one door to the room, don’t block the flow with a large coffee table right in the way of the sofa. Make sure you allow easy access directly to the sofa and chairs from the door, allowing for some space around the seating area as well.


Larger living rooms can be designed so that they function effectively as two areas. For example, have one social, entertainment center seating arrangement in one section, and a quieter study arrangement in another. Tall side tables can be placed behind a sofa with decorative vases and pictures on top, as long as there is still walking space behind the couch.


When deciding on how to arrange your living room furniture, listen to your instincts. Wait to decorate the walls for a few days or even a week once you have decided on where you are going to put each piece of furniture, to give yourself a chance to get used to the new placement. Live in the space for a bit, and assess how you feel. If something doesn’t feel right, you can always move it, and use these tips to help you bring your living room back into balance.

http://www.homeandliving.com
About the author:

A Yale graduate, BatSheva Vaknin writes plays, screenplays, and articles on topics ranging from finding the world’s greatest pizza to decorating a child’s room. She has just completed her first novel.


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 Principles of Interior Design
 by: Kathy Iven

Whether you are working with existing furnishings and fabrics or “starting from scratch” with an empty room, you should always use the elements and principles of design as a guide in choosing everything. The elements are your tools or raw materials, much like paints are the basics to a painter. The elements of design include space, line, form, color, and texture. The principles of design relate to how you use these elements. The principles of design are balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion and scale, and harmony and unity.

Principle #1: Balance

Visual equilibrium in a room is called balance. It gives a sense of repose and a feeling of completion. A well-balanced room gives careful consideration to the placement of objects according to their visual weight. The elements of line, form, color and texture all help determine an object’s visual weight, which is the amount of space it appears to occupy. Balance also refers to how and where you place the elements (line, form, color and texture) within a room. To maintain balance, try to distribute the elements throughout the room.

• Formal balance, often referred to as symmetrical balance, creates a mirror image effect.

• Informal balance uses different objects of the same visual weight to create equilibrium in a room. It is more subtle and spontaneous and gives a warmer, more casual feeling.

Principle #2: Emphasis

Emphasis is the focal point of the room. The focal point should be obvious as you enter the room; it is the area to which your eye is attracted. Whatever is featured, as the center of interest –a fireplace, artwork or a window treatment framing a beautiful view – must be sufficiently emphasized so that everything else leads the eye toward the featured area. You can add emphasis to a natural focal point or create one in a room through effective use of line, form, color and texture.

Principle #3: Rhythm

Rhythm supplies the discipline that controls the eye as is moves around a room. Rhythm helps the eye to move easily from one object to another and creates a harmony that tells the eye everything in the room belongs to a unified whole. Rhythm is created through repetition of line, form, color or texture. It can also be created through progression. Progressive rhythm is a gradual increasing or decreasing in size, direction or color.

Principle #4: Proportion and Scale

Size relationships in a room are defined by proportion and scale. Proportion refers to how the elements within an object relate to the object as a whole. Scale relates to the size of an object when compared with the size of the space in which it is located.

Principle #5: Harmony and Unity

A well-designed room is a unified whole that encompasses all the other elements and principles of design. Unity assures a sense of order. There is a consistency of sizes and shapes, a harmony of color and pattern. The ultimate goal of decorating is to create a room with unity and harmony and a sense of rhythm. Repeating the elements, balancing them throughout the room, and then adding a little variety so that the room has its own sense of personality accomplishes this. Too much unity can be boring; too much variety can cause a restless feeling. Juggling the elements and principles to get just the right mix is a key to good design.


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