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Help with layout of living/family room
Hi
My wife, two young kids (4 and 2) and I are going to be moving into a center hall colonial house that doesn't have separate family and formal living rooms - just one decent sized room (26'*15') for both with a small space (14'*10') off to the side. I've attached a floor plan of the space as a reference. Since I think the room will be used as a "family room" 80% of the time, I'd like to furnish it less formally. We're also moving from a small apartment so we're basically starting with a clean slate with respect to furniture. The room will have two large entry points - one at the top left which leads to the kitchen and one on the bottom left which leads to the hallway/front door.
I'd like a little help on furniture layout to see if I am thinking about things the right way or if I am missing anything.
My initial thought is to:
* Concentrate furniture in the center (vertically in the image) of the room so that nothing blocks the flow of the house
* Have a large comfy leather sofa against the wall facing the fireplace (which will have the TV mounted above)
* Have a matching love seat on the left side of the sofa (nearer to the kitchen)
* Have two matching armchairs on the right side of the sofa (nearer to the hallway/front door)
* Have a large coffee table in the middle of the U formed by the loveseat / sofa / armchairs
* Have two (slightly more formal) chairs and a coffee table in the smaller room off to the right
* Have some kind of storage unit (sideboard etc.) in the room - probably in the top right corner of the image
Some specific questions that I have
1. Is there a better layout that I'm not thinking about?
2. Is seating for 7 (sofa = 3; loveseat = 2; 2 armchairs = 2) appropriate for this size room? Too much? Too little? Should I be considering a different combination of seating e.g., sofa and 4 chairs? As mentioned, 80% of the time it will just be the 4 of us
3. Should all the leather furniture in the room match (i.e., be the same style/color)? Will it look weird to mix/match? (I assume the answer to this is yes?) We're looking at H&M sofa/chair options but not every sofa appears to have matching pieces.
4. Are there any suggestions for H&M style options that can do double duty in a family/living room? Should I be avoiding any particular styles because the room will need to function as a "living room" some small % of the time?
Thanks in advance for any advice / critiques!
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Re: Help with layout of living/family room
Now THIS is how you ask for assistance! Well thought out and a schematic. We can work with this. Based solely on your comments and drawing, I made up some pieces on 1/4" graph paper that are reasonably to scale and moved them around to come up with three different possible layouts. What you want to be careful of is to not over-furniture the room. In only one layout is there room for a pair of chairs, try to make 2' of walkspace clear from one to another. Coffee tables are a little bit passe', so I have used a 38" Square cocktail ottoman in my layouts, which is perfect for a footrest for movies and Super Bowls, and also double as two seats during a party if pushed up by the fireplace.
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You do not have to have everything matching, in fact I think its more visually interesting when things don't. Best way to approach this is as you are - get your scale down and number of pieces, then once you decide on the layout move to model selections. From there colors and textures - based on the room colors.
FYI on 1/4" Graph paper to your room, 1 square is 10" should you want to play around some more and make some cutouts of your own.
Re: Help with layout of living/family room
Thanks for the quick reply Duane! Much appreciated! I like Options 1 or 2 a little better than Option 3 (which is similar to what I was thinking except that you switched the chairs and loveseat and added a bench - which I like). Will discuss with the wife tonight and will revert via PM. Thanks again and happy new year!
Also, based on your markup, I think I've got to go with a more "normal" size sofa and not something oversized like the settlement sofa (which is probably going to dwarf the room). Would you agree with that? Thanks!
Re: Help with layout of living/family room
Yes, don't forget that the layout I did does not allow for end tables, lamps, etc....I would probably signets you stay in 90" or less on the sofa.