Our Living Room: Figuring Out the Floor Plan

    

Okay, you've asked for pictures of the new house, and I think I'll introduce you to the living room first.  Since I can't always blog about the entire process when I'm working on client projects, I thought it would be fun to take you step-by-step through the task of decorating our room.  Decorating the whole house seems a little overwhelming, but I've decided that it would help me breathe easier to focus on this one space first since it's where we spend most of our time, and it's the first thing you see when you walk through the front door.

This is how the room looked the day we moved in.  First off, let me say that we bought the house from a very nice lady who built the house with her late husband.  She definitely had more traditional taste than me, but it was a really pretty, warm home that I loved the first time I stepped inside.  During the closing, she said she was even going to start reading my blog to see what we did with the house.  (No pressure--ha!) 

So far, the only changes I've made is to take down the window treatments.  The house has some great transom windows, and I wanted everything to feel open. 

Now, onto the floor plan.  It looked pretty straight forward until I started placing furniture (doesn't it always?). 

So, here was my thought process. . .I originally thought the cable outlet should be moved to the shorter 8' wall, "tucking" it in the corner so that you didn't even see it when you came in the house.  A couple of problems with that idea.  1.) It put the sofa, slightly uncentered, on that long 17' wall, leaving me lots of wall space to fill.  And, 2.) my  husband kept giving me "the look" every time I talked about moving the cable outlet, speaker system wires, etc. across the room. 

And, the main reason I threw this idea out the window was because it didn't allow enough seating with a view of the TV. 



Onto Plan B. . . The TV console goes back on the long wall (my husband is happy), and we try the sofa on the short wall:

No, no, no.  Not working.  More people can see the TV, but that sofa on the short wall feels funny to me (even if we added a piece of furniture behind it).  There's little room for end tables--or lamps--and it just feels "off" to me. 

By the way, I realize an obvious choice might be to mount the TV above the fireplace.  I know this is common practice and works for lots of people, but I still can't bring myself to do it. . .



Plan C (Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!):

We're going with this:  the sofa out in the middle of the room with a sofa table behind it (prettier view from the front door), our existing bookcases on the short wall, the TV centered on the long wall, and a pair of chairs flanking the fireplace.  We have all of the pieces except for the chairs and the large 9x12 rug (more on that later). 

My only initial concern with this plan was that the sofa wasn't directly facing the TV.  (Does it seem like our lives revolve around TV?)  I've been testing it out, however, and it works pretty well.  I also like how the pair of chairs and sofa facing each other gives us a nice, rounded-out conversation area similar to this (with more comfortable chairs, though):

Ashley Goforth via DecorPad

We have a set plan. . . Now to convince my husband we need a big rug and a pair of chairs (oh, and a new light fixture. . .).  Like I said, it's always a process.