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HOW TO REARRANGE YOUR LIVING ROOM Print E-mail



When you need change in your life, you might get a new haircut or buy new makeup. When you need change in your home, you might want to start by rearranging your living room.

For the most part, the living room is one of the easier rooms to rearrange, mainly because it tends to be one of the largest rooms and has the most movable furnishings. Unless your living room is very small, you should have at least a few options for rearranging your furniture and accessories in different ways.

If you've never tried this before, set aside a weekend afternoon. Recruit some help (if you need to move heavy pieces), and you may even want to sketch out some possible layouts on graph paper. If you're rearranging the entire room (as opposed to moving just your sofa), it's a good idea to empty the room as much as possible and begin with a clean slate.

When you're ready to begin, try this:

Position furniture so that everyone who is seated can have a conversation without yelling or twisting awkwardly to face other people. If you have ample space and like to entertain, try to create "conversation nooks" so more than one conversation can take place at once.

Check your paths and keep them clear. Walk through your living room from every entry way, and walk around all furniture (except those pieces against the wall) to make sure the pathways are clear and easy to maneuver.

Free your furniture (some of it, anyway) by pulling it away from your walls. Try angling your sofa at an interesting position and see how it feels.

FIREPLACE?

Oh, the memories fireplaces hold! A crackling fire as the backdrop of the Christmas mornings of our youth. Roasting marshmallows with friends and family members, wondering why s'mores never turn out right. Warming your hands after a day of building snowmen and sledding.

But then it's all over and someone has to clean up those pesky, dirty ashes. If you've ever faced a fireplace full of sooty, black debris you know just what I mean. Cleaning out a fireplace can be a very messy job. And for this very reason, my own fireplace went unused for an entire winter. I wanted to use it; I just couldn't bear that thought of cleaning it out.

But fireplaces aren't just for fires anymore. If you want to avoid the mess, for instance, during a holiday party, but still want to create the ambience that fireplaces offer, you have another option. Simply arrange wood in your fireplace; then purchase about ten small, scented pillar candles. Place the candles on and around the wood and light it up for a gentle fire effect. (Tip: Line the base of your fireplace with something to catch the dripping candle wax.) If you'd like to light candles in your fireplace often, you can purchase candle holders especially made to fit into fireplaces. They're available in a variety of styles and sizes at decorating stores and even some discount stores.

In warm weather, you can arrange dried, silk, plastic, or real flowers in a basket or pot and set it inside your fireplace. A potted plant or a group of potted plants, is also a great way to brighten up a room.

You can also use your fireplace area to display collections or interesting items. Think of how fabulous a grouping of pottery, African masks, or glass bottles would look in a fireplace! Remember that just because it's made to contain a fire doesn't mean you can't use it for something entirely different.


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