How your furniture is situated in the living room should be flexible enough to handle various activities. Start your furniture arrangement plan by listing all the activities you expect to take place then list the furniture and equipment you’ll need to make sure each function is possible.

Furniture arrangement is the art of establishing working relationships between individual pieces of furniture, all within a given room’s context. There are some general guidelines that exist to help you narrow down the endless possibilities. Keep the following suggestions in mind:

• Experiment by leaving one wall completely free of furniture. This is especially important when the wall flanks a walkway.
• If the front door to your house opens directly into your living room consider shielding your living room by placing a standing, folding screen at right angles to the wall.
• Arrange traffic in such a way that it does not pass between people and the television.
• Large living rooms can feel alienating. Treat it as though it were different small spaces. Create more than one intimate seating – or activity area – within the large room.
• Group chairs a three to four feet apart. A classic, and comfortable, seating arrangement is a sofa flanked by two comfortable, upholstered chairs. Place a table near each chair for holding refreshments, glasses, your iPad, etc.
• Place furniture so its lines are parallel to the wall. This creates a greater sense of unity. Furniture that is placed on the diagonal creates excitement and contrast.
• Make the most of unusual living room space by building furniture (shelves, consoles, etc.) into the room. You can’t take them with when you move, of course, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.