How to arrange living room furniture?

[Kokomjolk]

Just moved in to a new house and it is not obvious (to us 🙃) how to arrange the furniture in the living room. We just sort of put everything in there when we moved and planned to configure it properly later but it's trickier than we thought.

Is anyone good at this sort of thing and willing to help??

It's a sunken living room, part of a larger space but the upper part is for the dining table, separated by a half wall. The back wall is much higher than the window wall. The room needs to contain a 3 seater sofa, a piano, a coffee table and the TV. We will replace the sofa and probably get some new armchairs soonish but not immediately, so it's possible we could het different sizes that might work more easily? Some of the other stuff you see in there won't be in there long term, we are still sorting everything.

Name changed because anyone who knows me would probably recognise the space and furniture!

It might be best to wait until you’ve lived in the space for awhile and moved the unwanted pieces out. I’ve found the way you think you will use a space when you initially move in, isn’t always the way you end up using it after 2-3 months. I think we’ve moved our furniture at least twice before settling for where it is now.

Oh I know you can always move it around again.

But for a starting point? We can't really have it all just dumped almost randomly as it is now. Just something that makes some kind of sense where the TV isn't in the glare from the window (north facing so not too bad but still), the sofa isn't miles away from it, the piano is somewhere sensible and it's easy to move around the space.

Everything I think of has some flaw and I think I'm honestly just a bit crap at this.

I would choose a focal point in the room for the furniture to face - so for you, probably the tv? The tv will have to be placed according to where you have the necessary aerial and electrical points currently. Just make sure you don’t block the steps with the rear of a sofa etc.
The piano would be best placed against an internal wall imo, but this might not work as you have a half height wall? (I might have misunderstood this and it’s a half of the room wall as opposed to half the height low wall).

Yeah it's a low wall. Probably not actually half height - it's lower than the back of the piano anyway. Just to separate the sunken space from the upper space.

I think it's what is making it tricky because you can't really have furniture up against it that comes up higher than it.

Yes that is an issue. You could potentially fill the gap between wall and ceiling with a bookshelf (secured properly). The illusion of a wall yet retaining the impression of an open space. That way you could put furniture against the (no longer!) half wall.

You've got a lovely view from that big window, so I think that should be your focal point. Have the TV at an angle across the corner of the room, to the left of the window. Sofa against the back wall. Piano against the wall that is opposite the steps. Coffee table in front of the sofa.

Alternatively, sofa and coffee table as above, but TV at an angle across the corner to the right of the window and piano up against the half wall, and then a row of books (with bookends at each end) arranged on top of the half wall to disguish the back of the piano. Or maybe a long, narrow decorative trough on top of the half wall, full of houseplants.

I disagree that you can't have furniture against the half wall that is higher than the wall. I would say that you shouldn't have furniture that is ugly at the back against the wall if it is higher. Your sofa etc should be fine to put against the wall... and you should get the benefit of the window there. Your piano probably isn't as attractive at the back, so not suitable to put against the wall.
I can't really see what you have, but I would probably make a lovely seating area at the window end, with the sofa against either the low wall or on the opposite wall, and put the piano against the wall at the other end, with some extra lighting.

Ooh, I like the idea of books / plants / something along the half wall to make it high enough to have the piano against it. I think that’s where it makes most sense to be in the room.

Thanks for the ideas. I think we will spend some time today moving stuff around and trying things out!

I think the distance along the length of the room is a bit far to put the sofa and TV at separate ends. There are a few TV compatible sockets so we do have options with that, though.

It's approximately 4.8m x 3.7m. I just measured it.

Marked on the plans as 19m2, which doesn't quite add up but there we have it.