Long narrow reception room - what would you do?

[Caterpillar0]

We're buying a Victorian terrace and moving into it shortly. It has a long narrow reception room with a step in the middle (approx 13x10ft, becoming 10x8ft).

There is no other dining room but I'm thinking that we'll eat mostly in the kitchen, and that the reception room should be a large living room (we'll get an extendable console table for bigger dinners - I've seen a great one).

But I'm stuck about how to arrange the room. It's not really big enough for sofas opposite one another with a coffee table in the middle I don't think. Also the wider side of the room has a fireplace which I guess we should leave exposed (or maybe not - it's not an especially nice one)

A bit more detail: the room has a bay window on the wide side, and another window at the rear (the narrower end). I definitely want at least one big sofa, but how could I fit another in without it being disconnected?

If you can make head or tail of my description and have any suggestions, I'd be very grateful.
Or if you could tell me how you arranged your long narrow reception room it might give me ideas.

Our living room is 12*15 ft we've designed ours with one longer settee along the long wall and one smaller settee along the shorter wall.

If I was you I would prob think about blocking up the fireplace to give you use of the one long wall. I think your best making it two separate zones than trying to create one long narrow living room or it may end up looking like a long garage with misplaced furniture .
For example have a seating area in the bigger part and then the smaller part have a console or sideboard with a reading chair etc.

Can you fit a window seat - something like this ... To give you extra seating maybe ?!?

Or something like this ?! With furniture spaced well enough to not feel too far away from the window seat for conversation ?!

Window seat is a brilliant idea. Really inspired!!

I think you're right, WhoKnows We'd love a great big living room but the space doesn't really allow

We did both of the above suggestions by WookiesWife and WhoKnows. Blocking up the fireplace unified the room and putting in cute window bay seating created a beautifully sunny spot to curl up with a book. Created two zones too with sofa/armchairs/windowseating creating a u-shape, then a second zone of bookshelves which transitions into the dining room (open plan but through an arch). Sorry it's not a great description. The room is 3.45m x 5.5m. We found the optimum layout only once we had blocked the fireplace, it was really useful to do that. Used one huge sheet of 6mm thick mdf to cover the whole chimney breast to avoid the hassle and expense of replastering.

We have a long narrow living room and found a large corner sofa to be best option?

I'd think about using one sofa (or a corner sofa) to divide the room and use the back part for a nice desk and bookshelves. Maybe low bookshelves along the back of the sofa (American houses do this well as they have so much more space).

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Personally I wouldn't get rid of the fireplace as if I were to buy a Victorian terrace I'd expect it to have one. I think it could hammer your resale price.

What we've done is make two spaces so we have dining table at one end with sideboard. Then there's the fire (in the middle of the room facing the door - weird) which has a rug in front of it, a bookcase next to it and an armchair diagonally across from it. Then our room is slightly divided by a large arch so on the other side of that we have a large sofa against the wall then another sofa at 90 degrees and the tv facing the large sofa. The sofa at 90 degrees faces the patio doors.

Hope that makes sense!

It really works with the small sofa cutting across the space as it makes it so much less corridor-ish not having all the furniture lining the walls (as the previous owners did).