Furniture does fit new build living rooms. What frequently does not fit is the combination of furniture people already own, arranged the way they arranged it in an older house. The constraint in a modern British living room is rarely total floor area: it is the length of unbroken wall available once doors, windows, radiators and the route through the room have taken their share.<\/p>\n
Set out the twenty pieces that make up a typical living room, from a three seater sofa to a nest of tables, and compare their footprints with the wall runs a current living room offers, and a clear pattern appears. Pieces sized by length struggle; pieces sized by height succeed. That single observation explains most of the difficulty households describe when they move.<\/p>\n
A living room of 16 square metres sounds comfortable. Divide the perimeter into a door with a swing, a window with a radiator beneath it, a set of patio doors and a return wall interrupted by an opening into the hallway, and the longest uninterrupted span may be only 2.4m. A 220cm sofa placed against that wall leaves almost nothing either side, and the room immediately looks overfilled even though two thirds of the floor remains empty.<\/p>\n
This is why measuring the room is not enough. We advise customers to measure each wall separately, record the position of every interruption, and note the height of the sill and the projection of the radiator. The output of that exercise is a list of available spans, and furniture is then chosen to fit the spans rather than the room.<\/p>\n
The table below lists common living room pieces with their typical footprints and the wall run or floor zone each needs. It is compiled from standard furniture dimensions and recommended circulation clearances. It does not rank popularity and contains no market data.<\/p>\n