Question: We have a room that is a pass-through and need advice on how to furnish it.

It is 8 by 18 feet, with high ceilings and crown moldings, a corner fireplace with a niche mantel and a large heating vent on the shortest wall. The wall opposite the door has an arched window whose sill is 20 inches from the floor. It frames a pleasant view of the hills.

The room has cherry plank flooring. There is a hutch on the left wall and a 7-foot couch opposite it with a large oval brass-and-glass coffee table. We have chairs everywhere, crowded and not inviting. One chair is a club, another is a large leather wing chair with footstool, and there is a pair of tub chairs. We also have a round English leather-top pedestal table in the corner next to the sofa. Atop it is a cherished red bronze lamp from the old Gump's. Four strong paintings are on the walls. Most of the area is covered with an Oriental rug.

Must we start over with new furniture? What do you suggest?

Ingrid Evans
Orinda, CA

 

Answer: Having too much furniture in a room is never a good thing, especially when the furniture is too large for the space.

You may not want to purchase everything new, but to make the room feel more comfortable and inviting, it may be necessary to replace a few of the items you have with pieces that fit the size of the room.

The length of your sofa is almost the same as the width of the room, which is out of proportion. So I eliminated the sofa and large coffee table and worked with just your four chairs, as shown in layout Version 1.

I also kept your pedestal table with the Gump's lamp on it. Thus I was able to create two seating areas and still maintain a path to the breakfast area at the far end of the room. One conversational area with all four chairs in it made the room seem too crowded. And I can't imagine where your sofa would fit in, never mind your coffee table.

FURNISHINGS THAT FIT: The challenge of furnishing a narrow pass-through space is in not having too many pieces, but also in ensuring that the furniture fits the size of the room.

Option 1: This version uses only the owners' existing furniture but a sofa that seemed too large for the room is eliminated.	Option 2: In this version, some of the existing furniture is combined with new pieces that are more appropriately scaled to fit the space.

 

So I went back to the proverbial drawing board and came up with a completely different plan that used some of your furniture, but not all of it.

Recently much has been published about people looking for ways to feel more comfortable in smaller spaces, and furniture makers are responding to the consumer's request for furniture on a smaller scale. This category used to be called apartment furniture, but now retailers are adding pieces that are designed for any smaller spaces.

Your hutch remains on the long wall, and the round leather pedestal table with lamp on it is nearer to the fireplace. But I replaced your large sofa, four chairs and large coffee table, with smaller pieces that are more in keeping with the size of the room and make the room more inviting and still comfortable.

The new sofa is only 60 inches long, saving more than 2 feet. Now the main piece of furniture in the room has a better proportion.

On each side of the sofa is one of a pair of club chairs. They're comfortable but have a smaller footprint than your barrel chairs or wing and club chair. This arrangement gives you seating for four people. If you need more seating, you can always keep a small ottoman on each side of the hutch and bring them forward for guests.

The new coffee table is small, 2 by 3 feet, and I encourage you to use one with a glass top. Its visual openness will help prevent the room from feeling crowded.

Because the round pedestal table and lamp are on the one end of the sofa, I've added a small end table and lamp on the other end to balance the lighting.

Your four pieces of art can bring personality into the room if we place the largest, strongest piece over the sofa, one on either side of the hutch, and the fourth on the wall between the pedestal table and the fireplace.

Your Oriental rug grounds the room and gives the upholstered pieces their color direction. For the sofa, the largest visual element, choose a color that either picks up the dominant color from the rug or complements it. For example, if maroon is the most prevalent color in the rug, the sofa could be maroon, or it could be a warm camel or deep beige. Take the second color from the rug for the club chairs and also use that color as an accent with throw pillows on the sofa. Use a patterned fabric on the small ottomans, and again, bring that pattern up to the sofa with more small pillows.

Following this approach will give you a room that's in better scale to the architecture. And it's a well-known fact that when all the elements in the room have the right proportions, the room is comfortable and inviting.

 

TO GO BACK TO THE "ARTICLES" PAGE, CLICK HERE