Feb 16, 2010

Ideas for Arranging Living Room Furniture

This is a great time of year to re-arrange your furniture. Especially if you are like me and you are stuck in doors because of all of the ice and snow outside. No need to go shopping, just work with what you have to create an entirely new to a room set-up.

Having your furniture pulled away from the walls in the living room can create an inviting and comfortable grouping. One of the challenges to setting up the furniture this way is "where to put the electric cords from the lamps". For some of my clients we placed an electric outlet in the floor under the sofa. This option however creates a permanent change you may not want to live with. See the layout below to see another way to deal with the cords.

In this layout there is a table lamp on either side of the sofa. The dotted red line represents the cord. One cord runs under the sofa; both cords plug into the outlet on the wall under the window. By placing the table under the window you are eliminating a pathway where people could walk and trip over the cords, making it possible to plug them into the wall. Placing them here keeps them out of site. An extra safety measure would be to tape them down to the floor. If you use tape make sure it is a color that will blend in with the floor you are taping to.

Another consideration for this type of an arrangement is having enough lighting. Here, in addition to the lamps on either side of the sofa, there is also a lamp on the table under the window and a floor lamp in the corner. Of course a ceiling fixture or wall sconces could also be used. It is important to have light in all sections of the room. You can use dimmers to control the light and keep the room from getting too bright, or just use low watt light bulbs.

One more thing to consider when creating a seating arrangement like this is to make sure you have a minimum of 3" to walk through the room. The above layout has 36" on three sides of the arrangement, which is enough to easily go from the entrance of the room to the wall with the sliding glass doors.

If you have any questions regarding a decorating project please contact me at info@RoseInteriors.com




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