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We're building a new home and looking for furniture layout ideas for the Great Room. The "bump out" detail is for a future fireplace and will be used for TV. See attached image.
We're a family of (3) who entertain guests ~monthly. I like the idea of a sectional couch, but it seems as if sectionals aren't friendly for entertaining guests.
You are kidding right? Just to let you know......when you buy your furniture at a quality furniture store, they offer FREE design services. But they will need more information than you offered this forum.
In general, the fireplace should be the focal point. Try to arrange the furniture around that, or if there will be a TV on another wall, you will need to decide how to reference the fireplace in a coherent way. I like putting the TV over the fireplace so that focal points are together, but others disagree. You want the TV to be at eye level or a little higher, so it might be that the fireplace mantel, if there is to be one, will be too high.
Off the top of my head that's all I've got. We really need to know more about the room. How will you use it, and if the fireplace will be wonderful and gorgeous and more. Is there a kitchen adjacent? Is this the only living space? And so forth.
Personally I like the tv's up a bit higher than most. I like to sit back and I naturally look up higher. It's more comfortable than looking straight ahead or down like a lot of people have. And the tv screen over the fireplace works in most people's homes, it's just the natural place to put it without having two focal points unless it's a very large home with several family living areas.
I like sectionals but find if you have room, two sofas facing each other are much nicer for guests. I always felt uncomfortable piling on the same piece of furniture with everyone else. The tv over the fireplace is always a big debate. I have seen it done very well and then done very badly. I say if you are gonna do it, hide the cords. Nothing worse that seeing cords running down the wall, over the mantle and so on. Congrats on your new home!
I like sectionals but find if you have room, two sofas facing each other are much nicer for guests. I always felt uncomfortable piling on the same piece of furniture with everyone else. The tv over the fireplace is always a big debate. I have seen it done very well and then done very badly. I say if you are gonna do it, hide the cords. Nothing worse that seeing cords running down the wall, over the mantle and so on. Congrats on your new home!
Yes, have a way to hide the cords. Good point!
I am going out on a limb here, but I think sectionals are a bit passe now. However, if the sectional works for you, I would not advise NOT buying one.
sectionals are definitely not passe. I agree that sectionals are not as popular as they once were maybe, but they are still made en masse even by most furniture companies and I still see them used regularly in modern design. I think they can still look great when the lines are right on the piece.
I like a sofa with a couple of comfy side chairs, maybe an ottoman that could double as another seat if needed. To me that is more aesthetically pleasing than a massive sectional, and if definitely gives more options for rearranging. I find it's harder for everyone on a sectional to see each other and converse.
I like that as a 1st choice too, but I also like mixing things up. For example, we have the sofa and side chair setup in 2 rooms already. However, in the bonus room, we wanted seating for for more like 6-7 people and also wanted to do something different. In addition to that, the space felt way too cluttered with, a loveseat, and 1-2 side chairs. Some really big, open houses you can get by with having lots of different pieces of furniture like that. This bonus room is longer than it is wide and it just felt very cramped with all the separate pieces of furniture (if that makes sense)
So instead we went with a sectional and one side chair and we can easily seat 6-7 people there and it feels MUCH cleaner really only have 2 main pieces of seating furniture. I hope that all made sense. Basically, everything has to be kept in context.
For example: our bonus room has a scale (in terms of length and width) kind of like this:
It felt too cramped with individual pieces like we did in our more open downstairs areas. Just too many pieces of furniture. We are getting a vintage sectional recovered this month so I don't have pictures right now but it feels much more open and less cluttered with the sectional and 1 chair now. Other rooms I definitely prefer not going with a sectional; however, this room the idea was just to be able to seat a LOT of people and not have the room feel crowded. The sectional provided the best way to do that in this room.
One thing is, people tend to always think of these massive, over-sized sectionals from the 90s that some people got. Ugly, monstrosities that took up half the room. If you go with a sleek frame and don't stuff it with 300lbs of foam and filler, a sectional doesn't have to seem massive at all. We are stripping our sectional to the frame, and getting it reupholstered to appear similar to something like this:
Still a sectional (ours will easily seat 5) but it doesn't seem massive or overbearing at all.
Last edited by Sunbather; 05-07-2013 at 12:57 PM..
One thing is, people tend to always think of these massive, over-sized sectionals from the 90s that some people got. Ugly, monstrosities that took up half the room. If you go with a sleek frame and don't stuff it with 300lbs of foam and filler, a sectional doesn't have to seem massive at all.
Wow! I'm not normally a sectional lover, but I actually LOVE the yellow sectional in your photo (it is quite similar in style to my bright red sofa). That is SO much more tasteful and elegant than the over-stuffed ones I was thinking of. Especially against 2 walls, it does not look massive or like it's dominating the room at all.
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