Proportions matter: Choose the right size furnishings for your home

Not only do proportions matter, but they are critical in furnishing a room that looks neither crowded nor unfinished. It is imperative, prior to looking for furniture, to consider the dimensions of the room to be furnished.

If professional help is out of the question, educate yourself about how it is done. Draw the room to scale; buy templates of furniture to draw the furniture on the floor plan. Have you left enough room to get around the sofa? Have you left clearance around a dining room table to push back a chair without gouging the wall or bumping into the sideboard?

The questions are endless; the answers are pretty simple. Avoid impulsive buying. The sectional sofa and massive breakfront that look handsome in a friend’s house may overpower your den. Plan, revise and plan some more.

QUALITY MATTERS

There are items you will buy that should last a lifetime. They are your most expensive investments and include sofas, beds and any other sizable piece that could be a focal point in a room. Good upholstered furniture can be re-upholstered when the first fabric wears out or becomes passé.

Find out what a sales person means when you hear “eight-way, hand-tied” construction on sofas and chairs. The term refers to substantial construction of the frame, built to last through the abuse of unruly children and clumsy guests.

Don’t be misled by advertising encouraging you to buy inexpensive sofas and chairs. Chances are that under the pretty fabric is cheap building material that will not stand the test of time.

AS YOUR TASTE EVOLVES

It is not necessary to buy every piece to fill a room all at once. You may wish you had given more thought to the style of those accessory pieces. There is no design rule set in stone that says all upholstered furniture must be the same style.

If the club chairs you fell in love with are no longer available, there will be others that work just as well. If you find the perfect dining room table, the chairs can be coordinated to the style or they can be covered to the floor in fabric.

A dining room table is another serious investment, so plan to buy the chairs later if you are not sure about what works best. Taking your time with any purchase helps you to avoid mistakes and allows you time to get over a fleeting decorating rage.

If you are not confident about the period you want reflected in your home, do a lot of window shopping and make a file of pictures of rooms that have caught your eye in design magazines.

Armed with your room’s floor plan, start shopping. Always sit on sofas and chairs to make sure they are comfortable. No matter how great they look, nothing is worse than a costly piece that is so uncomfortable, no one will use it.

If the furniture you want has to be ordered with your choice of fabric, be sure your sales person knows you want it as comfortable as the pieces you tried out.

STAY AWAY FROM FADS

Rooms fill up quickly. What looks reasonable on paper may not look the same in real life. Bright colors take up spatial weight in a room. Take that into consideration when you are selecting several primary hues for a living space.

One of the biggest mistakes buyers make in selecting sofas and chairs is choosing large arms, which take up as much floor space as a couple of seat cushions. That sofa may fit the floor plan but, when it is in the room, the huge arms will dominate your space.

According to Bert Maxwell, owner of the family furniture store which bears the same name, oversized, overstuffed sofas and chairs are not as popular as they were 10 years ago. Customers are asking for more seating area and less arm. Considering the size of the average house, the demise of those bulky arms is a relief.

The resurgence in popularity of pit groupings or sectional sofas is evident on showroom floors in more sophisticated and versatile arrangements, offering options for separating the units or using them in a continuous seating plan.

Frank Murphy, sales manager at Moore’s Furniture, sees the trend in fabrics toward solid and subdued colors -- especially appealing in sectional sofas. Maxwell said he is selling a lot of leather furniture. However, customers are reluctant to buy leather in colors other than dark neutrals like brown or navy blue. Leather is a durable material available in a wide range of colors, which would make a more significant statement in a room than the dark colors.

Although Murphy still sees hesitation over an investment in an unusual leather color, he said Moore’s has successfully marketed light gray and camel leather sofas in transitional styles -- those that will work in traditional or contemporary environments.

Traditional styles have been interpreted in such massive furniture sizes that a standard front door is not wide or tall enough for delivery. Although some are graceful in design, with luxurious down cushions, the ceiling height and dimensions of the room would have to be generous enough for the sofa to have accessory seating and tables. If you do not have estate size rooms, this is not the sofa for you.

The same rule applies with dining room furniture. Banquet tables surrounded by period chairs and expansive serving and display pieces are elegant in the right setting. Crowded into a small dining room, neither the furniture nor the room is shown off to its best advantage.

EFFICIENT USE OF SPACE

Remember your floor plan? Go back to the drawing board and find furniture that suits your taste and your space. On the floor at Bert Maxwell’s store is a dining nook, which is a problem solver for limited dining spaces. The seating wraps around two sides of the table as a banquette, which can be placed in a corner but provides seating for at least six people, with a couple of chairs on the outside. The nook would look as if it is built in to a corner, a useless space in most breakfast rooms. The scale is appropriate for a small space, but accommodates a family.

It is not fun to play it safe in decorating an entire house, but there are purchases for first-time buyers that should be conservative. It matters not if a sofa is six feet or eight feet long -- only two people will sit on it.

Therefore, buy a sofa that is user friendly and versatile enough to fit the evolution of your taste from “early marriage,” or “first job out of college,” to casually upscale. You can dress it up or down with accessory pillows and with the remaining furniture for your favorite room.

Consider furnishing your house an education in design, a creative journey -- not a destination fraught with anxiety.

Katherine Walden is an interior designer and freelance writer in Macon. Contact her at 478-742-2224 or kwaldenint@aol.com.

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 10:30 PM with the headline "Proportions matter: Choose the right size furnishings for your home ."