What I do when I want to buy furniture is tape it off on the floor with painters tape to get an idea of scale. Furniture looks much smaller in the stores.

Wow! From the floor plan, I was expecting something bad, but what a fabulous room!

What you propose seems like it would work, except would the radiator interfere with your sofa placement?

OK- Based on the information above- this is a scale representation of your space. I didn't do much "arranging" because, in my opinion, you're trying to get too much in the room. However, I only guessed the sizes of your coffee table and dinette.

{{!gwi}}

Love the big ole golden on the floor & your room!! Beautiful beams.

I would look at apartment sized furniture - would a smaller scale sectional fit in there? I know Norwalk has apartment sized furniture. Definately measure your spaces - all the furniture made now is so big!!

Smiles:)

Thanks for the input

My sister used to work for Norwalk -- she really recomends them but there isn't one anywhere close just other stores that carry their line (and they aren't close either)

The coffee table is 43 x 31

The little blue kids table and chairs is not staying

I am not going to worry about being able to access built ins - maybe uppers stay open and once a year items go down low.

What if I shift sofa closer to right (north wall) and move swivel chair to other side (maybe both on that side flanking fireplace? I can't piture how tight that will be. I was originally thinking only one small chair but having us all piled together watching Olympics made me realize that if we can swing 2 it would be better (I have 4 kiddos).

I have a picture from the previous owners listing - maybe I can find it -- I can't remember how it "felt" with their furniture -- if it was cramped or ok -- I'm going to go look for it now

Here is the house from the previous owners picture. I want to put one chair where the small side chair is and the other where the wingback chair is. If I don't have a table in front of radiator maybe it will fit.

The thing is I can't believe that wingback fits where it is. It has to be pushed all the way up to the built in and it has magazine racks on both sides -- I feel like it must stick out into the doorway of the kitchen - OR get extemely hot when a fire is going -- they may have moved things around for pictures.

It's weird to me -- it looks in that picture like things will fit but the spaces seem so cramped without furniture in place

Time to get out the blue tape -- I wish I had other chairs in my house to test out but they are not right -- I already convinced my husband to carry in the living room sofa with me which is how we got to the 83 inches because it was 86 and it was too long.

You might have better TV viewing if the chairs flank the sofa.

b-t-w, do you need the dining room door to be open, or is there an entrance from the hall?

mjlb -- yes dining room needs to be entered from keeping room (we talked about reconfiguring space -- used to be opening in dining room from hallway which was probably butler's pantry, but they grabbed space to make a bathroom there (full) and it is very nice to have that feature for overnight guests and just in general so although it would make a ton of sense to move a lot of stuff around it's not going to happen both from a finanical standpoint (I have a lot of other things on my list) and also I like way the Welsh cupboard anchors the dining room on the wall that I would have to open up.

I don't think I can fit a chair between sofa and wall because the cupboard comes out into the room 13 inches on that side. It doesn't show up in Miles' drawing -- thank you btw for your rendering, it really helps me see the space and what will work in it better.

bg- the space from couch to door (where the wicker-back arm chair is) is just too tight- as you can see, the previous owners pretty much had to step on the hearth to get around the chair.

BTW- I have found that blue tape is a waste of time- expecially if all you want to do is jog something over a couple inches. If you really need to have something in the room then cut out corrugated board footprints of your estimated furniture and toss them about freely.

Here is another quick rendering- removing the table and chairs, resizing the coffee table, adding the built-in and moving the couch some.

{{!gwi}}

Of course You could always consider a loveseat with additional alternative seating such as a couple cube-ottomans.
{{!gwi}}

Miles that is so helpful!

I feel comfortable buying a sofa and one chair and building from there -- Maybe a smaller (probably uncomfortable) chair would on wall btw dining and hall entrance -- but I am not comfortable with the clearance between that and the coffee table.

The chair to the left of kitchen entrance is fine for conversation (prob too close to fireplace) but worthless for tv even with a swivel - grump.

I may buy a pair of antique chairs that I saw recently which I know were 31 wide -- I think the depth was 34 ish which would buy me some room (and if they don't both fit I can either sell one or find another home for it in the house). I think I am going new with the sofa so I am trying to maximize internal seating area in an 83/84 inch sofa.