Furniture layout – II
The balance lines are easy to determine. Draw 2 faint lines accross your floorplan dividing the room in half length wise and breadth wise. This will divide your room into 4 quadrants. This is important because you need to have an equal “weight” of furniture in each quadrant in order for the room to be balanced.
Traffic patterns are also easy. Leave 36 inches clear in front of each door opening to allow space for the swing of the door. Also keep 12 inches clear in front of the windows for access. Traffic patterns tell you where not to put prestige furniture, mark these on your floor plan.
Now, what about the focus of the room? Is it a fireplace? Bay window? Blank wall where the home theater screen or an artwork will go? Plan your furniture layout to take advantage of this focus.
Establish an axis for the room. You now want to draw an imaginery line up the middle of the wall from floor to ceiling through your focus. Continue this line across the ceiling and down the opposite wall to the floor. The idea is this, you want the focus balanced from floor to ceiling. If your focus is a fireplace this would mean putting a picture or something above it to fill the space. You also need to balance both sides of the room. So you would have to put something on the other wall of equal visual “weight” along the axis line. Everything is about balance.
You are now ready to start planning where your prestige furniture will go in the room. You need to place the furniture in the room so it takes advantage of the focus and so it serves the function of the room. Arrange your prestige furniture so that all 4 quadrants have equal visual “weight”. This does not mean you need to have a mirror image of furniture in the quadrants, but it simply means you don’t want every piece of furniture in one quadrant or one half. Visually on your floor plan the room should look balanced. Draw representitives of your furniture on your floorplan to scale. Try various ideas. Decide which one you find most appealing.