The Best Layout for a Long Living Room

Room Planning

• Assess how you'll use the space and break up the living room into more manageable areas. To make the process easier, draw the room's layout on gridded paper, marking off each section in terms of use. For example, if you know that you'll want a homework area for the kids, an entertainment section and a dining area, draw these on the paper. Work out how you can divide up the space so that it becomes multiple rooms within one room.

Natural Features

• When dividing up your long living room, start with the natural features that already exist in the room. These provide natural visual room dividers. For example, exposed ceiling beams offer a good place to start. If you're dividing the TV area from the dining room, line up the backs of the couch, chairs and the edge of the throw rug with the ceiling beams. Your brain will accept this as an invisible line stretching from the ceiling beam to the floor, effectively dividing the entertainment space from the dining room.

Room Dividers

• Although it's ideal to use the natural architectural features to break up a room, not all living rooms have such pronounced features. In this case, use furniture to create barriers between each part of the room. For activities that require quiet, use larger items, such as a bookcase or a divider screen, to not only physically divide the areas, but also to provide a bit of a sight and sound barrier between the spaces. For example, if you're placing a knitting and reading area next to the TV and game area, position the couch between the two. Push the bookcase behind the couch so that they're back to back. The two pieces will absorb some of the sound, while the bookcase provides shelves to store supplies for your hobbies.

Color

• Using different colors provides you with one of the simplest ways to divide a room. Buy furniture and accessories in a specific color for each section of the room. For example, do the game area in mustard yellow, the TV area in burgundy and the dining area in blue. Buy large pieces of furniture, such as couches or tables, in these colors for their respective areas. Accent pieces, such as throw rugs, that feature the colors from all of the room's separate spaces provide a visual tie between each without diminishing the visual dividers created by the separate colors.