Help: Small, quirky living room

[AilFin]

I desperately need help. Otherwise, I wouldn't post this embarrassing mess.

The back story is that we moved, and my husband rented a house that I didn't see until the kids and I moved here. He had no choice because the rental market here is dismal when you need 4+ bedrooms *and* it had to be near his equally hard to find 3500 sf office.

He gave me the wrong dimensions for just about everything. My son came up with correct dimensions the day before the moving van came. Most of our furniture would not have fit through the front door. I purchased a bunch of living room furniture on Craigslist that did fit, and the movers picked it up for me.

Naturally, the furniture and rugs looked awful in the room. By the time I got set up to buy furniture, we had a very bad year. My husband had 4 strokes, I had a heart attack and two operations, one of our sons was hospitalized for 2 weeks, and our beloved collie died.

The pics don't look great -- they were taken awhile back, mostly, while everything was cluttered, and a desk had been moved in so we could supervise our son on the computer. I can't take better ones right now as I am recuperating from an angioplasty/stents procedure right now. Anything that looks destroyed, is ... by the dog when he was a puppy. Thanks to him, I found out that some of the Craigslist furniture (which sold for a pretty penny new) had cardboard inside!

I can paint the walls and the paneling, but not the woodwork. I plan to purchase new furniture, curtains, and rug for the living room. No neighbors except cows, and only the front of the house faces a road. Sofas will be small (max 80", 34" high, <38" deep), chairs have to fit my husband (6'2", 250 lbs). Need seating for 6 family members -- all adult sizes.

We will live here for 2-3 more years and then buy a ranch style house, so the furniture I buy now will definitely fit there.

Rule #1: No red. I am tired of feeling like I am sitting in a dark, cave-like blood vessel when I'm in the living room.

Preference: I am partial to blue, green, soft yellow (sky, trees) - pale to medium clear colors, if they don't clash with Brazilian cherry floors ... there is an undertone problem lurking here, with my luck.

Rule #2: If possible, no sectionals.

Rule #3: I do not like a rustic, country look. I like slim-lined furniture, no mission style, no arts & crafts, no cottage/country. Probably transitional bordering on modern. I do not care if the style doesn't match the house, but I'd like it not to look like I plopped a Manhattan apartment down in the middle of a cornfield. I hate the fireplace, the beams, the paneling, the dark woodwork, and the fireplace sconces -- but I'm stuck with it (although I can paint the paneling). The owner renovated this 100 year old house and he is very proud of it, so I have to be tactful -- asking to paint the paneling was about as far as I can go, so his beloved sconces have to stay.

Rule #4: My husband has physical problems after his strokes, so he needs either a recliner or tilt back chair he can get up from -- it takes him several minutes to get up from our crummy couch. Lord only knows if one of those will fit in this room.

Here is the plan of the living room, done by me a total first-timer amateur. (You have to click on it to make it larger.) The top of it faces east, the front door faces north.


Here is the link to my Photobucket account that has photos of the living room (please excuse clutter & mess):

http://s1148.photobucket.com/albums/...Living%20Room/

I forgot to say what kind of help I need! The #1 problem is that I cannot figure out a furniture layout for this room that will seat six people comfortably. I have tried every configuration and loveseat, sofa, chair, sectional combination I can think of. I cannot buy furniture until this is done. I plan to begin with purchasing a sofa (or 2 small sofas) in a light neutral color, IF someone can figure out where to put them!

Thank you very, very much,
AilFin