Living room dimensions

9 years ago

I know this has been talked about before but I'm hoping for some help. We have received our first set of plans back from the architect. I love everything about them but am concerned about the living room flow. This picture is not of our plan, just a similar set up, our living room as of now is 16 wide by 20 deep ( stairwell wall to fireplace wall). I plan to have the back of the couch 4 ft in from the stairwell wall that would be used as the walkway, I'm thinking that leaves me usable living room space 16x16. Is this enough room? Do I need to make the room deeper to accommodate the walkway and a decent size living rooom? We are a family of 4. Thank you!

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renovator8

9 years ago

A plan of the house with furniture shown would help.

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Comments (7)

Annie Deighnaugh
9 years ago
16 x 16 is usually considered a max for a conversational cluster, so I think that would be fine.
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nepool
9 years ago
If you face the two couches to each other, it would give better flow, I think, instead of the couch backing up to the walkway.

For a floating couch (not on a wall), I like to have a sofa table blocking the view from the back of the couch. Not sure if you like that too- but if so, add it to your dimensions.

Couches facing each other with Sofa table:

[Traditional Family Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-family-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_720~s_2107) by Denver Interior Designers & Decorators Oliver Designs
zkgardner
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you Annie, do you think a 4 foot walkway is sufficient since it's the only way into kitchen and backyard? We have also increased the kitchen by 5 feet and where the pantry doors are shown next to the living room are now double doors to the back yard. The house is long and the back yard runs along the eastern side of the house.

Reno- I have not asked permission to post his drawings. This was the plan we started with for insperation and the flow from living room to kitchen remains the same as shown above.
ILoveRed
9 years ago
I think it also depends on how old your kids are and if this is your only living area/play space.

Personally, I think it would work but if it's your only space and it's an option I would be tempted to bump the size up a little.
Annie Deighnaugh
9 years ago
I would think 4' for a walk way would be adequate, esp since you can shrink the size of the conversational cluster down to 12x12 so you'd get extra space.

The best way though is to lay it out in your existing home using newspaper or painters tapes or chairs or whatever and see how it feels. We spent a LOT of time mocking up various parts of the new house in the old house to make sure it would be comfortable for us.

The other thing we did was to visit model homes or open houses and bring tape measure and pencil and paper and we saw things we liked or didn't like and measured to see what we thought would work best for us.
zippity1
9 years ago
that seems a little small to me but i am accustomed to large groups of people, maybe 15 to 20 in my home at a time which requires larger spaces
if you entertain small groups you could be fine.....