The Art of Furniture Arrangement

No, not as in getting out the brushes and tarps or changing the paint colors. Look at your space as a painter looks at a work of art. There are visual tricks that painters use to create the appearance of depth in a space. You can use these tools too.

The first trick painters use is "triangulation." A painting begins with images lower in the left and right corners with objects coming to a peak just above mid-center of the painting. This draws the viewer into the scene, which is what the painter wants to accomplish. A basic example of triangulation used in interior design is the placement of two end tables on either side of a sofa with a painting over the sofa. If you can imagine this scene, it is lower on the corners with the apex of the view just above mid-center at the top of the painting.

The second trick painters use is the creation of depth in artwork, which is a two-dimensional medium. Paintings often have a foreground, mid-ground, background and vanishing point. Look at the bottom of, say, a river scene with mountains. The river will appear near the bottom of the painting, trees will make up the mid-ground, the mountains the background and the place in the painting where the "eye can see no further" is the vanishing point.

All furniture arrangements have a certain gestalt, or "totality," a "form." Large rectangular spaces can be dealt with by dividing the "form" of the space into another form. A long narrow living space, for instance, can be split in two by creating zones of function. Say, one half is for the sofa, or the function of conversing, and the other half is for a dining set, or the function of dining.

This helps you take the bite out of large rectangular rooms by dividing them into squares by zones of function. Humans tend to feel more comfortable and less formal in square furniture arrangements vs. rectangular.