Whether you’re moving into a new house and don’t know where to begin, or you’re simply tired of the arrangement and interior design of your current home and ready for a change, we at Nashco are here to help.

When it comes to the environment and functionality of any room of a home, the furniture arrangement is what turns your vision into a reality. Luckily, it doesn’t take being an interior designer or feng shui expert to create an inviting living space. By simply choosing the right furniture and keeping just a few techniques in mind, you can transform the look of your living room, bedroom, dining room — any room of your home.

The following is our comprehensive guide to furniture arrangement for living room furniture, bedroom furniture, and dining room furniture. Whether you are in Nashville or beyond, we hope that when you’re looking for the best furniture deals to add some new life to your home, you’ll look to our Top Rated Local® furniture warehouse at Nashco Furniture.

Living Room Arrangement Guides

Large Living Rooms

Leave Ample Space For Traffic

In any living room, no matter the size, it’s important to allow for a comfortable walking path — at least two feet between large pieces of living room furniture like sofas and chairs. Ensure that you also leave ample room at each of the entry ways so that the area feels more inviting rather than appearing bottle-necked.

Place Your Sofa Parallel To The Longest Wall

Whether it’s directly up against the wall or with space behind, it’s essential to have your large living room sofa alongside the largest wall in the room in order to maximize the available space. Large sofas extending out sideways from the wall can make a living room feel cramped very quickly.

Structure For Easy, Cozy Conversations

In a large living room, it can be difficult to create an atmosphere that encourages socialization among everyone in the room when you have guests over to your home. In order to successfully achieve this, arrange your living room seating options so that they are less than eight feet apart from each other. If your living room is exceptionally long, you can even opt to create two separate conversation spots.

Ensure Each Living Room Seat Has A Table Within Reach

The last thing you want for your living room is to have you, a family member, or a guest having to stretch across the room to set down a glass of wine, only to spill it on your living room rug. Avoid these sorts of scenarios by incorporating a coffee table and end tables that are easily accessible from each piece of living room furniture. You can even test it out after you finish arranging to see for yourself if it works!

Another way to avoid instances like these is to ensure you leave over a foot of room between your tables and seating for ample walking space, where you won’t have bumps leading to items falling off onto the floor. It’s also important from a design perspective to mix up your shapes when it comes to your living room end tables and coffee tables to spruce things up.

Utilize The Space With Plenty Of Storage

If you are lucky enough to have a home with a large living room, take full advantage of it! Incorporate living room storage accessories like large entertainment centers, bookshelves, and even ottomans or tables that have hidden storage compartments underneath.

Medium Living Rooms

Determine The Room’s Focal Point

Whether you choose to make the focal point of your living room the television, fireplace, coffee table, or another piece of living room furniture, position your main living room sofas, recliners, and chairs towards the focal point of the room, ensuring everyone has a clear line of sight from where they are seated. This arrangement also encourages easy socialization, similar to with a large living room.

Add Elements To Room’s Furniture Framework

You can create a more cozy and functional-looking framework for your living room by placing cabinets and bookshelves around the perimeter of the room. This adds an extra layer of depth to your cozy living room while also adding elements of functionality.

Leave Space For Easy Movement

While you want to have your living room chairs and sofas close enough together to encourage conversation and relaxation, don’t forget to leave enough open space for easy entry and exit paths. This ensures the perfect balance of comfort for your living room arrangement.

Incorporate Plants And Natural Light

Liven up your living room with a few potted plants as well as using light-colored curtains that still allow natural light to emit into the room without being blinding.

Small Living Rooms

Maximize Your Focal Point

While this can be trickier with a smaller living room to work with, do your best to angle your main furniture in the direction of your focal point in order to highlight the specific feature. This layout gives people the ability to feel right at home in your living room despite your lack of available space.

Use Appropriately-Sized Free-Standing Furniture

With a smaller living room comes smaller living room furniture — this should be given if you are looking to maximize the capabilities of your space. On top of this, adding other living room pieces such as transparent tables and raised sofas can give your area more room to breathe so that it doesn’t feel overcrowded, even with a plethora of seating.

Use Round Edged Tables

There’s nothing worse than banging your knee or stubbing your toe on the edge of a coffee table. This is certainly more prone to happen in a more condensed living room arrangement, so avoid sharp-cornered tables and opt for rounded edges instead.

Up Your Storage Capacity

If you’re in the market for new living furniture, choose items that provide hideable storage like ottomans and coffee tables with drawers. Keeping a space clutter-free yet still easy to access items keeps your living room’s style and comfort in balance.

Minimize The Number Of Furniture Pieces

While having a sufficient amount of seating is one of your top priorities, you should avoid making your living room feel tight and cramped. Limit the living room furniture you place to your most primary options that receive the most use, then bring in additional chairs when they are needed for extra guests.

Bedroom Furniture Arrangement Guides

Large Bedrooms

Start With The Bed Location

Begin your bedroom layout design by choosing the placement for your biggest piece of living room furniture: the bed. Rather than placing it at the end of the room, center it along the longest wall so that your large space feels more balanced and full rather than disjointed.

Bring In A Large Area Rug

Use a long rug to tie the entire room together along with giving your feet a break from the cold hardwood while adding an extra element of style. Place it either running underneath your bed or near the foot.

Use Larger Furniture Pieces

Don’t be wary against buying larger furniture pieces such as full dressers and armoires in order to fill your space more and give it a more cozy feel. This also ensures that you have plenty of places to store clothes rather than using the extra floor space to allow piles of clutter to form.

Add An Extra Comfort Feature

Since you have additional space, you might as well take advantage of it with a unique element that’s just for you, like a craft corner, work desk, or reading nook. You can include pieces like a desk, comfortable chair, or even a stylish bedroom futon.

Use Varying Sizes Of Accessories

Make the room more visually appealing and energetic by mixing in different sizes of bedroom furnishings. For example, you can use a tall bookshelf or entertainment center to contrast the height of your bed or desk.

Vary Your Lighting Options

Large bedrooms certainly give way to many lighting options. In order to make the most of your space, incorporate different types of lighting for different activities and moods. Use plenty of table lamps for a comforting ambience as well as dimmer lights in the corners of the room to avoid distant areas looking dark and desolate.

Medium Bedrooms

Establish Your Bed Layout

We recommend placing your bed along the wall that is across from the entryway. This way, it is the focal point of the room when you first enter. Avoid clogging the pathways and access to dressers by keeping bedroom furniture at least a foot away from walkways,entryways, and the dresser drawers when they are fully extended.

Place The Dresser

To maintain balance in your bedroom, place the dresser across from the bed. This leaves you with ample room for accessing your dresser while not having one side of the room with more furniture than the other. To make the most use of your wall space, choose a vertical dresser rather than a longer, horizontal one.

Add A Touch Of Personality

Bring your bedroom to life with some personal touches that showcase your style. This can be done in the form of patterned rugs, trendy nightstands, wall art, or anyway you feel like expressing yourself.

Raise Your Television

To once again make use of the height of your room and take up less wall space, consider mounting your TV onto your wall or placing it on top of a dresser.

Add Comfort For A Cozy Feel

The little things like a comfy bench, reading chair, or ottoman at the base of your bed can go a long way towards making your bedroom your peaceful haven.

Small Bedrooms

Start With The Bed

Especially with a smaller bedroom, strategically placing your bed is crucial. Depending on your particular bedroom and other bedroom furniture, this could mean arranging it up against the longest wall, underneath a window sill, or in a corner of the room. If space is extra tough to come by, leave a walkway on only one side of the bed.

Avoid Clutter With Unnecessary Furniture

Remove any smaller items that are crowding the space on your walls, floors, and shelves in your bedroom. Think about what items you use the most and find other places outside of the bedroom to keep those you don’t.

Use Furniture Pieces With Height Rather Than Width

Making the most use of the vertical space in your bedroom is the best way to add storage volume while having room to breathe.

Maximize Hidden Storage

Whether you purchase storage compartments for underneath your bed frame or an ottoman with a hidden compartment, optimize your space with as many hidden storage areas as possible.

Amplify Your Mirrors

Mirrors are a great feature to help a room feel larger. Add them above your dresser or other areas on the wall to make the room feel less closed-in and add more decorative elements.

Keep Clear Walkways

Just because your bedroom may be small doesn’t mean you can’t create easy movement flows. Keep a clear path of at least two feet on one side of the bed and keep your bed at least three feet away from your doorway.

Dining Room Furniture Arrangement Guides

Large Dining Rooms

Choose A Table Similar To The Room’s Shape

For maximum seating and to bring continuity to the room, choose a dining room table that best matches the shape of the room — a long rectangular table or one that’s oval. Consider one with removable leaves, so you can reduce the floor space taken up when not hosting a dinner party.

Determine Table Location

When it comes to table placement, you have a few choices. You can either float it in the middle of the room, with ample space on either side for movement, or you can also place it near a large window or centered underneath a light fixture.

Utilize The Room’s Perimeter

Place bookshelves and cabinets on the walls of the room, adding storage and depth to the space. Pieces can be tall or short, but should slightly differ from the table’s height for visual contrast.

Add Plants And Light Dimmers

Consider placing plants near the windows or in the corners to add life to the room and have a fresh feel all year round. You can also install dimmers for lighting that’s perfect for any event or mood.

Small Dining Rooms

Mix Up Seating Options

Consider using a bench on one side of your dining room table — it can be tucked underneath when not in use to save space. Keep your regular dining chairs on the other side for contrast and comfortable seating, but only as many as you need frequently. Store the additional chairs in another room or closet to be brought out only for larger dinner parties.

Maximize Natural Lighting

Make use of the surrounding windows to help your small dining room appear much larger. Consider decorating with minimalist curtains that allow a sufficient amount of natural light to come through.

Nix The Rug

Declutter your small area and increase chair mobility by removing any rugs if you have them. Incorporate other style pieces instead like light fixtures or dining table centerpieces to spruce up the room. This will provide your dining room with personality without cramping the space.

Sneak In Storage

If you have room for a storage piece in your dining room like a dining hutch or cabinet, it’s certainly worthwhile. Place it against the wall and out of the way of the main trafficked area. You can use these to store your decorative pieces like flatware and glassware in the top, and in the bottom, food storage containers, and other dinner party supplies.

Multipurpose Dining Rooms

Choose A Mid-Sized Table

Decide on a table that can be used for dinner parties, but also other things like crafts and homework. Especially in a multipurpose dining room, you should consider a table with removable leaves, so your table size remains flexible for different uses.

Create As Much Storage As Possible

Utilize bookshelves, dining hutches, and tall cabinets for storage of glassware, dishware and other things you want easy access to. Place the storage furniture on the walls with plenty of space for easy access.

Consider Traffic Flow

Since this is likely a very busy, active room of your house, make sure it’s easy to navigate. Allow approximately two to three feet in areas where people will be walking frequently.

Incorporate Multiple Lighting Options

When you’re using a room for many purposes, you’ll want varying lighting options. For detailed work like writing letters or paying bills, you may need some brighter lights. For hosting a relaxing evening party, though, you may want softer ambience. Use mount lighting or a more mobile option like lamps and dimmers.

Find Multi-Use Furniture Pieces

Consider buying dining room furniture that has multiple purposes, like cabinets for dishware that also have covered spaces for board games, supplies and work material. You’ll not only save on space, but will also have more of an open concept in the room.