Furniture Positions Can Mean All The Difference

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31776, 5 September 1968, Page 11

Furniture Positions Can Mean All The Difference

Sometimes you come away from a gathering of friends feeling that everyone has had a thoroughly good time, the company has been congenial, the conversation easy and interesting, the whole atmosphere a friendly one.

On other occasions, the going is heavy, the conversation stilted and dull, and there are prolonged and embarrassing silences. Such a situation can occur as easily at a get-together of the girls as at a formal dinner party.

Few people realise how much the decoration and furniture arrangement of a room can make or mar the success of a social function—large or small. Take one example: It’s difficult to have a friendly chat with someone who is sitting on the opposite side of an 18ft living room. Yet this is often the siuation which occurs in New Zealand homes. A friendly atmosphere can be encouraged, and good conversation can be promoted, if the homeowners take care to make it physically easy to talk.

Create a conversation group with your seating. It can be a classic square or Lshape, or it can be an informal. irregular semi-circle or U-shape. In this arrangement, guests can talk without having to turn awkwardly to face one another, and without

raising their voices above the normal tones.

It’s a good idea to have a permanent seating group so that as many as six people can sit down witbin about eight feet of each other. If there are extra visitors, extra chairs can be drawn into the group as the numbers require.

Provide variety in the seating, with some pieces deeper than others, some with high backs, some with low, so that visitors can take their choice. Older pople, for example, often prefer an upright style which is easier to get in and out of. When deciding where to establish this seating group, two important factors have to be kept in mind. The first is the traffic pattern of the room—in other words, where people walk. If the room has only one door, there is no problem. But if it has two or

more doors, say one into the dining-room or kitchen, then you have to take care where you put your seating group. You don’t want the family walking through the middle when you’re chatting to friends, and you don’t want to walk in front of the screen when others are viewing. When there are two doors on the same wall, put a piano, sideboard or bookshelves along it. A chair or sofa in this position makes it likely that passers will trip over feet. The second Important consideration for a seating group is the focal point of the room. In many homes this will be the fireplace. Where there is central heating, it might be a window with a view, a coffee table, a feature wall of books, pictures and other decorative objects, or even, of course, the television if that is your family’s chief relaxation. The advent of television ruined a lot of otherwise attractive living rooms. Perviously the seating had been gathered around the fireplace in a friendly group. When the new television set

arrived, it was plugged in to a convenient electric socket, which was more often than not on the other side of the room.

Immediately, of course, all the chairs were pushed back from the fire to the edges of the room, or lined up on the opposite wall to the offending television set. This may make for comfortable viewing but it ruins a room both decoratively and socially. A far better solution is to place the television beside the fireplace so that the family can view, while the chairs remain in the same congenial group. If there isn’t a convenient electric socket it is worth having one installed. The expense is minimal when compared with other items of furnishing, yet the decorative effect is enormous.

It you have a very large room, arrange your furniture in two or more seating groups. For instance, one by the fireplace, ’and another by a window with a view of the garden. When you have a big crowd visiting you, you can amalgamate them.