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Furniture arrangement plan for a small apartment
Image - Thefhd.net

Want to redesign your existing room? Put furniture front and center as soon as the thought of redesigning a room comes to mind. 

Learn why paying close attention to furniture is important and how you can use this knowledge to your advantage.

In Formation Lies Function

Home interiors are not restricted only to wall color or type of curtains, but go far beyond design to include functionality. The trick lies in blending design and function to get to your goal of amazing visual appeal for comfortable living spaces. Furniture plays a big role as it can make or break the look of your room! If you do not color coordinate furniture pieces and plan placement well, your home may look incomplete. 

The two plans below show how movement (traffic paths) can be dictated by placement of furniture and of rooms within a home.

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Image - Designbasics.com

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Image - Designbasics.com

Give Your Home Visual Balance

Large items in a small room or small furniture pieces in a large one can make it look tacky or incomplete, respectively. The size of the furniture is important, not just for semblance but also for ergonomics. If you are unable to think of a way to arrange your furniture, create a focal point and plan an arrangement around that.

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The furniture is anchored to the wall and the design tied together with tribal influences
Image - Residencestyle.com

A Reflection of You!

Choosing your home’s furniture or furnishings will always show glimpses of your personal taste. This is perhaps the reason why we stress so much about the style. Feel free to sway between retro and contemporary but don't forget to coordinate the look. Don’t even think about decorating your modern elegant room in retro chic! It will look shoddy and messy, at best. Also avoid an over the top look, just stop, examine and add or edit.

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Personalize - Shabby Chic with period pieces and floral accents 
Image - Alicelanehome.com

Make Ergonomic Sense

This small living room has been designed to keep the conversations intimate and movements easy

Design and style aside, if you keep bumping into furniture or have to shimmy out of a seating nook then it's not good enough, period. Furniture dictates flow of and makes it possible for people to move around without knocking into tables. The general rule of thumb is to place chairs no farther than 8 feet apart if you want to encourage conversation among guests, always place a table at a reachable distance from a seat but leave enough leg room. You can also create traffic lanes so that movement is easy in heavy footfall areas.

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Furniture should be ergonomic in designed and placement
Image - Decosee.com

These are just some basic rules for placing your furniture in such a way that design and functionality can be optimized. Based on these rules, you can plan any kind of design that sits well within the larger theme of your home.