Some Guildance for Viki
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:33AM 
Hi Christine,
I need help in the worst way. I have been trying to figure out what to do with my family room and a friend suggested your website. I have really enjoyed looking at your website.
Finally after 16 years I have convinced my husband to remove the wallpaper border from our kitchen. That is where it all started. We have an open floor plan -- the kitchen and breakfast room is open to our family room. I changed the curtains in the kitchen and want to coordinate the rooms. So I changed the pillow. We spent two years looking for the chairs -- he wanted recliners and I wanted oversize chairs with ottomans.
We found recliners we both love. But I can't figure out how to arrange my living room and now my walls look bare and boring. I need advice because I have one shot at my husband to make changes. He doesn't like to change things in the house - he is about function.
The table between the chairs is just until I find a table but can't seem to find anything. And my room is long and has openings. I am not sure how to arrange my furniture.
Can you help me?
Thank you
Viki
Hi Viki,
Let's start with your furniture arrangement. Yeah- it is really bad. I do like the wall you chose to put the TV on- I think that is probably the best wall unless you wanted to purchase a large wall unit. I would also consider not having the TV in the room altogether. If you had a single focal point- that is always ideal. Or- the TV over the fireplace is another option. I find the split focal point frustrating. For now- my advice will include you leaving it where it is.
The sofa and love seat pushed up against opposite walls is definitely the worst part about your furniture arrangement. Your room does not lend itself to a parallel grouping, and it is too wide to have the furniture against the walls. Pull the furniture in, put the long sofa opposite the TV wall, add a console table to make it look good from the back. Create a more intimate seating area by pulling the furniture away from the walls.
Add a coffee table or two- not chocolate brown. You have too much dark brown in your room already. The addition of the coffee tables will help with your seriously horrible negative space. Read about what I mean by negative space in these posts.
Your rug is disconnected with the brown furniture and the room in general. Replace it with a rug that can act as more of a unifier. The rug above is from Homedecorator.com
Your drapes at one end of the room are different from your drapes at the other end. They should all be the same, even in a large open floorplan where the areas function as separate rooms. The pattern above is from Waverly. Your brown furniture is coming across more like you wanted a safe non-committal color. You have brown furniture- so act like it is part of your color pallet in a stronger way.
I would paint your walls a silver sage blue color. Keep it light, keep it subdued.
Remember scale, scale, scale on your wall decor. Also, remember variety, variety, variety. You have three pictures, (you need variety) and all of them are too small (you need better scale). See my advice to Julie on scale. You should have a variety of wall decor items, and also a variety of numbers. See my advice to Becca on variety. You also have a problem with relationships in your wall decor. See this post on relationships.
Add a lighting plan and some greenery and your room will be fantastic!
Reader Comments (4)
I'm curious how you would treat Viki's mantle, I know she didn't ask but it's in a corner with a cathedral ceiling, is there anything you would do differently with that than you've recommended in your past fireplace posts? I also have a corner fireplace with a (less dramatic) cathedral ceiling and all the angles have me scratching my head when it comes to the mantle. Does it lend itself to an asymmetrical arrangement with something tall on the high side?
I have the same thing. I liked it when we purchased the house, but now it drives me nuts on how to decorate with it.
I have corner sofa, but i need to repair it to make new one. Please let me give advise?
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