Long and narrow living rooms are tricky to furnish: if you don’t get the layout right they can feel sparse, unfinished and lack cosiness. In small or narrow spaces, the temptation is to push all the furniture against each wall, but there are creative ways you can arrange your furniture to create a layout that works for you.

Create two distinct zones

There’s multiple tactics you can use to zone a space, but the first thing to decide on is what will the purpose of each zone be, for example:

Watching TV and lounging
Dining
Socialising
Reading
Playing or gaming
Playing or listening to music

Once you know the purpose of each end of the room, you can position furniture in a way which visually separates each side.

Cut across the width of the room

This might seem counter intuitive, but physically splitting the room by positioning furniture across the width of the room is a good option for long or narrow spaces.

What this does is turns a long rectangle into two smaller more proportionate squares, which are easier to furnish.

Use the middle of the room

There’s no reason that you should have to fill every corner of a room, and creating your main living zone in the centre of a room allows you to let each end of the space breathe.

Sometimes the layout of a room is dictated by focal points or architectural features (like chimney breasts), so this option is a good choice if your room is lacking in focal points as you can create it yourself in the center.

Use L-shaped furniture to create a zone

L-shaped sofas help to cut a space in half, which make them a good choice for longer rooms which could do with being split into two square areas. They also offer seating in a sociable layout and give the same impact as two sofas, without adding the width of a full second sofa - so a good choice if your room is on the narrower side.

If you’re not keen on the idea of the back of the sofa being visible from the other end of a the room, a console against the back of the L-shaped sofa is a great option.

Use armchairs for zoning

If your space is really narrow, you might not be able to fit an extra sofa or an L-shaped sofa. Armchairs are a great option for narrower rooms because they’re flexible enough that they can be moved, and they also allow traffic to flow more freely around the room.

A pair of armchairs facing towards a sofa gives a really sociable layout whilst also zoning the space.

If you’d like my help with your next project, check out my services to see how we can work together. If you’ve enjoyed this blog, don’t forget to subscribe at the bottom of this page to receive my new post in your inbox every Sunday.

You might also enjoy...