do you have furniture you're working with yet? or are you buying all new furniture?

17x20 isn't a small space, and at the framing stage there's a total eye phenomenon where it seems smaller, but once it's all buttoned up it'll feel bigger again.

that said, the flow of foot traffic is going to be a real challenge with putting a lot of furniture in there.

if you can respond about your furniture i can try to help. i usually use free online furniture planners or floor plan software and put in actual furniture to see the layout.

I plan to buy new furniture. I would like to get as much seating as possible. I was thinking either a couch and love seat, sectional, or even two couches. Just looking for any ideas. Thank you!

not knowing how you'll use this room the most, it's hard to nail all the general possibilities...

for instance, is the room mostly for socializing - in which case your seating should be arranged more facing each other to talk? or is it the primary tv viewing room, and you watch a lot of tv? how is the view out the window and do you want to feature that? is it more important to have a high number of seats? or more important to feel spacious? how important is the aesthetic balance? i.e. if you hang drapes on your walls of windows, the furniture is not likely going to be centered on the windows.

here are a couple different scenarios, but there are plenty more as you have plenty of room.

7 full seats:

technically 7 seats, but feels more like 6 because the corner of a sectional doesn't really count.

the point is, you have room - just decide how many you want to seat, and how you want the room to feel. i don't really care for the sectional layout, but it feels more open to have chairs instead of big solid pieces on that foyer/walkway side.

hope that helps!

PS: i used floorplanner.com and it's pretty easy to drag furniture in and out once you get the hang of it.

PPS: you'll definitely want to check measurements of any furniture you buy. some 3 seat sofas are 98" long and others are 78" long!

Thank you Maggie!! We will use the space mostly for tv watching. And I'm very concerned about it looking more spacious and not cramped. I found this pic on Google and thought it was a good idea. I also worry about us being so close to the TV above fireplace. I plan to mount it tilted downward, but don't want it to seem weird. I'm wondering if I should have my built ins wired for a tv also in case I decide to put the TV off to the side.

i think arranging the furniture with the tv on the sides would make it more difficult to align the furniture to view the tv. for example, i don't understand the tv's location at ALL in the example you posted above. only 1 or maybe 2 of the chairs have a reasonable location to watch the tv in that setup.

the furniture arrangement above looks nice and you have the space to do that, and it would look nice with the tv above the fireplace. i think if you polled most people on this forum, the majority would prefer NOT putting the tv above the fireplace, though i think it looks nice and it's never bothered me watching tv at my brother in law's house where the tv is mounted above the fireplace. tough call. it doesn't hurt to wire the shelves for the tv, but it just makes the furniture arranging more of a challenge in my opinion.

I'm so glad to hear you say that! We had our heart set on mounting tv above fireplace.

Hi, just wanted to chime in because we have lived with both layouts. Maggie's floor plan lay outs the TV can actually work better on the right side of the fire place....IF....you simply have it on a shelf that pulls out (think basically like kitchen cabinets that have a pull out). You pull it out 2 feet or so and angle the TV (if more people are watching) and more people have a good view. In our opinion with living with both it is much better viewing for more people than above the fireplace. Above the fireplace tv in the layouts you still have people looking up and/or not directly in line with the tv. We have shelves on both sides of the fireplace and the tv side has doors that when open, slide back into the cabinet and like I mentioned above...then TV is on a slide out and makes all the difference.