long thin room - furnishing guidlines

Hi everyone,

I picked up a small house a short while back and I'm now ready to buy a few things like furniture Are there basic guildlines I can read online about how to furnish or decorate a long thin room? This house has a combined living / dining room which is 10x20 or maybe 11x20 or something around there.

Ideally I'd like to get a sofa or loveseat as well as may a couple chairs (because I think a sofa AND a loveseat would be too big..maybe). I also need the other side of this room to be the dining area so I was looking into a table around 5' long that can fit 4 comfortably and maybe 6 if need be (i know this would make it tight). Does anyone have any ideas for long thin rooms that need to serve both purposes like this? Its harder to do than I thought.

Originally Posted by contoursvt

Hi everyone,

I picked up a small house a short while back and I'm now ready to buy a few things like furniture Are there basic guildlines I can read online about how to furnish or decorate a long thin room? This house has a combined living / dining room which is 10x20 or maybe 11x20 or something around there.

Ideally I'd like to get a sofa or loveseat as well as may a couple chairs (because I think a sofa AND a loveseat would be too big..maybe). I also need the other side of this room to be the dining area so I was looking into a table around 5' long that can fit 4 comfortably and maybe 6 if need be (i know this would make it tight). Does anyone have any ideas for long thin rooms that need to serve both purposes like this? Its harder to do than I thought.

A sofa and a loveseat would definitely make moving around difficult. I would place a sofa on the long wall and flank a set of chairs on either side of it. If you need additional seating, get one or two of those cube ottomans and scatter them around where there's room. As for the dining table, I'd get a round one, maybe 5-6' in diameter. Those could definitely sit 6 people, and you'd still have room to navigate around it. Hope this helps.

If you have a traditional long sofa, then agreed, Sofa and Loveseat will be to much for that space.

I think 2 smaller sofas, and a chair would work, or 1 sofa with chairs around. For the dining area, I'm not a big fan of circular table as it can look bulky and out of place in a long and narrow room.

I'd look at a pullout square or rectangular table that seats 4 (up to 6 or 8). You could even use a couple of chairs from the dining room set as living room seating (dual purpose)... you just have to try and 'match' decor/colour.

Do you have any windows? Use mirrors to brighten up the space and make it look wider.

Also play with the scale of objects. You may like one piece in there that's largish (entertainment centre/cario?), and then smaller pieces around that.