Do you have plans for the wall space on either side of the fireplace? (A TV to the left?)

Are the ceilings vaulted at all? (I am guessing not with an upstairs..)

Where do you envision furniture in that fireplace room and would that furniture placement help decide this?

I'm not sure about the ceiling yet as my architect is still drawing up that part, however I do know that they will be as tall as possible. The kitchen area and hallway next to kitchen will only be 10'.

As far as furniture placement I would like a sofa facing that fireplace with chairs vertical to the sofa on each side. Probably two chairs on each side. This furniture layout would create a "U" shape around the fireplace. I think this would only work if the Fireplace was centered on the wall. If it's not centered we would put the sofa in front of the fireplace still and only put chairs vertical to the sofa on the far side of the great room.

hollysprings said what i was going to say. I do crave symmetry. However, the symmetry must support my actual use of the space. Yes, put your furniture then place the FP

I think the FP should be where the double door is.

Looking at your plan it seems that part of your defined Great Room space will really function as your hallway. If you were to define your great room without the 4' that makes up your passageway, then the new center of the room would actually be the center of that end wall. I think the "u" of furniture would work with this scenario and help define the space. Hope this makes sense!

Looking at your plan it seems that part of your defined Great Room space will really function as your hallway. If you were to define your great room without the 4' that makes up your passageway, then the new center of the room would actually be the center of that end wall. I think the "u" of furniture would work with this scenario and help define the space. Hope this makes sense!

Okay, so here's my furniture placement with the Fireplace centered in the room, not the wall. (Ignore the weird furniture floating around outside of the plan.)

Optional furniture layout with Fireplace still centered to Room, Not wall.

Furniture set up with Fireplace centered to the wall.

Center the fireplace on the other wall, and all of your dilemmas are solved.

hollysprings - are you talking about the wall where the windows are? It's a possibility we could consider, but we've always wanted a fireplace that has rock that goes all the way up to the ceilings. We have very high ceilings in this room. However, there is a dormer window above the wall of windows so we would only be able to do a small fireplace there that wouldn't be able to go to the ceiling. Plus I like tons of natural light, so I would be losing a window by doing this. Still, it is something to consider.

Also, that "window" you see on the other wall in the middle, is actually French doors that lead out to our deck. There are also large windows on each side of the doors

I'm talking about the wall to the left, opposite where it currently is located. Then, I'd do a set of French doors that lined up with the foyer so that you could have a great view from the entry to the exterior and some type of focal point. Connecting the indoors with the outdoors with intentional line of sight views makes the home feel larger and live bigger in less space. I'd also do a second set of French doors to the left on that back wall, and have a door from the kitchen into the great room so that you can access the back yard easily from the kitchen for grilling and other outdoor activities.

Wow, I'm so sorry everyone, especially to hollysprings. I made a mistake on my floor plan that I drew with the furniture in it. There is no wall between the great room and kitchen. That would of been a great idea if there had actually of been a wall there. :) Please refer to my original post and the floor plan listed there. It shows no wall between the two rooms.

Do a freestading double sided firepace there then. Adds a ton of ambience to both rooms, and helps to separate the two spaces while still having it be an open floorplan.

The key question is, will there be a TV in this room? If so, will it be to the left of the fireplace or over the fireplace? If you don't plan on putting the TV over the fireplace, I think it would look good to have it centered on the room, and the TV to the left, basically centered on that wall. Then you could shift your furniture slightly closer to the TV, giving more room for your walking path from the kitchen to the bedroom area.

The fp should be centered on the wall. Even though the room is larger, the area to the right is actually a "hallway" and you will want it to function as such, so you will want to group your furniture around the fp and still have that "hallway" for traffic flow. That will also make the fp look more centered from the kitchen which is where I suspect you will be spending a lot of time looking at it.

The only thing is, you haven't sketched in a TV...is there a TV in this room? If there will be, my answer may change.

Our fp is not centered in our room, but centered on the wall across from the sofa so the main seating area is grouped around the fp.

At first I was going to say center it on the wall, but with the double french doors, you will need to have to have a walkway on the left too. So, if you keep the fireplace centered on the room, then your furniture will also be centered on the room, leaving walkways on both sides.

Another vote for placing the fireplace on the back wall, flanked by either window or doors. Why? Because when you eliminate the "hallway", your actual room is longer than it is wide; thus, your biggest piece of furniture (sofa probably) should run parallel to the longest wall -- the wall with windows. And you probably want the sofa to face the fireplace.

So I think the fireplace should go to the back window wall, and the whole furniture placement should shift 90 degrees left.

This will also take care of the problem of walking into the foyer and having a sight line of the side of a fire place.

This post was edited by MrsPete on Thu, May 22, 14 at 19:41

When your family is in that room, what percentage of time will the family be watching TV? And what percentage of time will the family be sitting ACTUALLY watching the fire?

I'd plan the furniture placement, TV placement, and fireplace placement accordingly.

In our den, we mounted the TV above the fireplace, centered. It gets very awkward when you have two competing visual anchors in one room, and furniture placement is only appropriate for one of them.

This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Fri, May 23, 14 at 15:40

Make the front room TV room. Or make it the fireplace room. Split the functions so that you can have the rooms concentrate on their particular focal points. Split focus rooms never work well.

Thank you for everyone's input.

I have decided to center the fireplace on the wall.

We will not be having a TV in this room because we have a family room downstairs for the TV, so we don't need to create a spot for that.

Also, even though I have French Doors in the room going out to the deck, there is still 4' of walkway behind that chair to access both French doors which is fine for us. The doors swing out, not in.

Again, Thank You!

With no TV in the room, I'd center my fireplace on the furniture placement. Furniture placement is dependent on traffic corridors and flow.