before and after vacation ski chalet

Bliss…Christmas vacation…Christmas carols, falling snow, the crackling fire…I’m lounging in our vacation ski chalet, gazing out the window at the snowy ski hill (the image above is the amazing view)…my attention distracted only by the awkward furniture arrangement hampering the beauty of the chalet. A large sectional (certainly too large for the space) divides the small ‘great room’ into two isolated spaces, one for eating and one for lounging…the furniture hampers our socializing, the flow of traffic and our zen!. Such awkwardness can be easily fixed with just a few simple adjustments…as I’ve learned from years of aggravation, exploration and experimentation. So, I set down my wine and start pushing the furniture into the positions that make sense and create that desirable cozy, calm ambience.

...sectional divides this narrow room into two small spaces… sectional seating is cramped against TV wall and creates a visual and physical barrier that makes the space feel small...

Turning the sectional opens the space visually and physically creating a space with better flow and function…and is much more inviting – So simple. Now it just needs some loving touches…a coffee table, area rug, plush throws and some colors to tie it all together.

For this quick ‘re-shuffle’ these are my tips:

PURPOSE…Determine the PURPOSE of the room and arrange the furniture according to the purpose of the room. This is essential to effective, functional and beautiful furniture arrangement (and room design). It’s really important to know what you want to use the room for and to stick to that purpose when arranging the furniture. Furniture arranged in a room focused on gathering and chatting with friends functions much differently than one arranged for playing Wii or watching movies with the family…and this ‘purpose’ needs to be tightly focused for smaller rooms which can’t accommodate a lot of furniture (for varying purposes). In this beautiful chalet, one of the big issues seems to be too many conflicting purposes within such a small space…social gathering and conversely a media room… As a result, the furniture arrangement creates barriers between areas, making them cramped and isolated – effective for TV viewing but only semi-effective for socialization and functioning otherwise. It seems to me, in a vacation ski chalet, the obvious purpose in the ‘great room’ is socializing. Changing the purpose to simply focus on gathering, social, lounging and eating, and not including TV viewing, provides greater flexibility and options for furniture placement, a much more effective layout and beautiful design. (However, this arrangement could also easily accommodate TV viewing with a simple change in the placement of the TV…not my chalet to start hanging the TV elsewhere…darn!)

FLOW- EQUALLY important to purpose, in determining the furniture arrangement, is the visual and physical ‘flow’ in the room. Once the purpose of the room is determined, focus on the FLOW. Beautiful rooms with great furniture arrangement, above all the other elements, are highly dependent on flow. Furniture arrangement that enhances the flow in a room will create a feeling of space, openness and calmness. To do this, it is important to keep the walking and visual paths wide open – place furniture so that you can easily walk around and see throughout the whole space. Think of a dragon moving through the space, as my husband has taught me well both verbally and in demonstration – the dragon needs to be able to flow freely through and around the room…his demonstrations kind of represent a bull in a china shop:)…same idea, I guess – both require a lot of space but the result is very effective. The furniture in this beautiful chalet had bad flow and would definitely not accommodate ‘the dragon’. The sectional backed against the dinning table blocked the path between the living areas – this can work well in a large space but in this small space, it feels and is functionally cramped.… and its frustrating (bumping into furniture visually or physically is always frustrating). Further, in the arrangement the available open space (the inner ‘foot’ space between the sectional and chair with the coffee table) is physically and visual hidden making the room look even smaller. Simply turning the sectional, so it opens into the room, rather than backed onto the room, visually doubles the size of the room. It also becomes much easier to move around, making the room feel much more roomy and comfortable. The open position of the sectional (facing the other areas of the room) connects the seating and eating area, creating a social connection between the people in both areas, expanding the ‘social’ space of the room.

There – done! Now the room is cozy, calm and functional…and my family is gathering on the newly positioned furniture. I curl up again with my glass of wine, gazing at the room…hmmm, so many other design elements I would love to tackle now – balance, color, accents, symmetry, some throws, rugs – maybe tomorrow. For now, I will enjoy the ambience and the snowy billows building outside the window.