Room Usage
How to choose the furniture you should have in a specific room seems to cause way too much trouble for a lot of people. I see too many huge sofas occupied by one or two people. I see cumbersome recliners which take up as much floor space as a twin bed and force the other people using the room into a convoluted “dance around the furniture” get to their seat. Or even, in one house, everyone wanting to sit in the conversation area had to enter walking sideways. I’m not making that up.
The process isn’t rocket science. There are steps to take which will make it easy and almost guarantee your success. And it won’t hurt to read a bit about furniture placement. Check the website for some links to good info.
Here are some guidelines which will help you choose the right furniture.
We tend to use specific rooms for specific purposes; e.g., family room = watch TV.
We know that in some specific rooms, we must have specific elements. e.g: family room = T.V. .
We know that there will typically be a static number of people who use these specific rooms. e.g.: family room = all family members. Plus enough seating for the occasional guest.
We know that each of these people will need a place to sit. And typically a sofa is for two people no matter how many seat cushions it has.
We know that each of the people who sit in a family room needs a place to put a drink cup within easy reach. 
We know that each of these people may want to read something — a magazine, a tablet or a phone — and so each person’s seat needs adequate lighting.
If there are specific tasks happening in the room be aware of the furniture those tasks require. E.g., card table for poker night.
We know that there should be clear walking space through the room which does not force anyone to walk between the main seating area and the focal point. E.g., no walking between the sofa and T.V. to get from the one side of the room to the other.
Decide what furniture you have which fits your needs and what furniture you need to purchase to fulfill your room usage needs and make a list.
Make a list of the number and type of light fixtures you need to fulfill your lighting requirements.
See up there, on the website menu, the section called ‘Learn Things’? Well, click there and you will find 3 print-outs to help, the Room Usage Checklist, The Room Lifestyle Questionnaire, and the Decorating Process on One Page. Print them and use them. Please.
Next step: a floorplan.
P.S. the featured image for this post is the BEFORE of a family room staged by Artistic Staging. They have some fabulous before and after pictures on their site. Take notice, please.
