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Home Decorating Furniture Design Dilemma

Need help with pass through living room

4 years ago

What is the best furniture layout for this room? We pass through this room constantly to access the front door, and vice versa from the front door to the rest of the house. Not sure how to keep unobstructed walkways to both the dining room and family room?

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Comments (3)

suezbell
4 years ago
You want an "L" shaped path from entry to dining to family room.

How many people do you need to seat?

If you could put only shallow bookshelves beneath the windows and put all your seating around the fireplace area, that would be practical. and/or, Budget permitting, you might consider opening up the wall between living room and dining room so you can access the dining area from the center of the room so you could put chairs against the exterior windows wall, too..

Rather than wearing out your back dragging furniture around, draw and then cut out the size and shape of the furnishing you have and see how they work placed on the graph of the room.
kath_ko_
Original Author
4 years ago
Thank you suezbell!

I was thinking the same thing about needing an "L" shaped path along the windows, by the dining entrance, to the family room.

I resourced an online design company, and both layouts had a couch against the window wall. I just can't see that working with the flow.
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Whether to go down to counter height with the opening: Are you tidy? Do you leave things around the sink and will it bother you to see the backs of the things you leave around the sink from the other room? If you want to have a bit a screening around the sink I would leave it and you can create a countertop ledge/bar area at the higher level, the seating would have to be bar stools, not counter stools. If you don't want any screening of the sink from the other room, open it down to counter height.
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Thanks all for your replies. Unfortunately, they cant be returned. I remember him telling me as well before I left the deposit that any changes need to be made before a certain date. They are made as ordered. Well, that date is long gone. MalhGold, the cabinets arrived this Wednesday and are being held at the kitchen warehouse. Im actually holding them up. I went CRAZY looking for my discontinued existing tiles (they are 5 years old). I didn't want to break out my existing tiles as this project is an extension from my current kitchen and needed matching tiles. Well, the Tile guy found the tiles in Italy, and not sure how many Italians are on here, but some of you may know, nearly the entire Italy takes off from work in the month of August. No joking. Everything shuts down. He put the order in but missed the ship, so its now another 5 weeks before the tiles arrive!! Beats having to rip them out and put new I guess. Weissman, nice kitchen! What is the size of your opening? Also, is that a standard size range you have and who makes it? Choux. I thought about that. Do the top cabinets need to be ordered to have doors on both sides? Or can they be modified? Thanks all! Your opinions are a big help! By the way, these are my actual cabinets taken from the manufacturers site. I was trying to create something like that on the right of the picture with the space between the upper and lower cabinets, though this is pretty much different setup.
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Thanks, the house is a raised beach bungalow that was actually wide open(other than the completely closed off kitchen) when we bought it. We added the craftsman details ourselves when we first purchased including the bookcases that divide the living room from dining area as I needed a place for our homeschooling books to be stored. It is not a true craftsman home but it suits the style fairly well.. Yes the header can go. It's a truss frame and side walls are bearing. The kitchen table will be going and there will be an island but it will only be big enough to accommodate two stools. We are a large family with young children and teens and felt that having the island area and peninsula area for additional seating for quick meals and snacks would be beneficial, but mostly I wanted the peninsula for serving food into the dining room table. At first we weren't going to do stools. I was just going to take the cap part of the wall off and have granite extend over cabinets and wall to make a level serving area. Then we decided to do the shallow cabinets pulled forward to allow a recessed stool area for no back stools. I have an inspiration photo from pinterest but don't know if that is against the rules. Here's a couple of photo renderings but the peninsula wall is different on both and neither is accurate at the moment for what we have planned.(adding in regards to the peninsula, everything else is correct)
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suezbell
4 years ago
If opening up the wall to the dining room to enter it closer to the center of the room isn't practical, rather than leaving the area beneath the windows "naked", you might consider adding a plant beneath each window.

My personal experience is that a snake plant can reach 4' tall above the dirt -- the deeper the pot the taller they grow. It a pot with its own drain tray and set on a four wheeled rolling dolly w/rim so the pots would not easily slide off, they'd be easy to move about for cleaning purposes.

There are a lot of different shallow metal and wood plant stands and tables for beneath your windows -- rounded corners could be a plus. Also, beware splayed legs since they're a potential trip risk.

Flower pots and plant stands can be an opportunity to add your favorite bold color to an otherwise neutral colored room and draw attention to the windows and the natural light/view they provide -- a good reason to choose window treatments that leave as much glass open as possible.
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