The Sunday Mail
When laying out your living room, there’s more to consider than simply where to put the television.
Factoring in the dynamics of your entertaining style will ensure you’re always ready to welcome guests into your home without the huge hassle of having to rearrange your entire space (or, you know, your life).
Why? Because, aesthetics aside, you should always arrange furniture according to how you live. Yes, you want it to look beautiful, too – don’t worry; form and function are not mutually exclusive.
We turned to industry experts to zero in on tips for making your house a home with a living room that is a perfect party venue.
Floating furniture in the middle of the room helps delineate distinctive areas
Skip sofas and go for settees instead
Sure, you could opt for the classic furniture configuration of a sofa paired with two club chairs or a large L-shaped sofa with one or two club chairs. But if you really want to encourage conversation, buck tradition. Love seats and settees are great paired with chairs and ottomans.
Nesting furniture is your friend
“Nesting tables are great. You can shift them around, leaving the big one beside a stationary armchair. Then you can function around the two smaller ones – like bringing in more chairs from the dining room and situating one of the nesting tables between those.”
Think vignettes
Floating furniture in the middle of the room as opposed to pushing it to the walls will make it easier to delineate distinctive areas in your living room conducive to mingling, even if it does seem counter-intuitive.
Stagger table space
Here’s a scenario everyone is familiar with – you’re hosting a party and you place all of your food in a central location, say the island top or the dining room table.
Only what inevitably happens is you create a huge bottleneck of people milling about in the same space. — sheknows.com.
