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[Katcat1]

I would have had two sofas that faced each other on each side of the fireplace, chairs either closer to the fireplace or on the other side of the sofas.  In a corner, you can have an conversation table (round) with 4 to 6 chairs.  The way I always arranged furniture is by standing away from it and lookiing to see how it looks.  If it does not look right make changes.

[sometimesQVCaddict]

Love the first blue room & the "maximalist" while not my style necessarily, it looks well loved by the owner & they have great style in mixing colors! The other "do's" certainly are planned out well to not make the rooms look like bowling alley, but not my taste.

The don'ts are the EXACT reason I'm not a fan of open concept. Too much empty space that looks either like a hotel room or just very awkward. I'm a fan of cozy nooks, separated rooms, or the illusion of cozy spaces in larger rooms.

The original room has great bones, it just needs filling out!

[Oznell]

What perceptive comments people are making!  Thanks for taking the time to add your considered analyses.

That layered and collected room with olive sofas is a favorite of mine too, @spiderw .   An inspired collab between legendary architect Gil Schafer and designer Miles Redd.

Laurel Bern didn't mention this one in her article, but I also think this one below shows one of the many ways you can make bigger rooms more intimate.  Putting a sofa table behind the sofa helps punctuate the division between the two conversational sections of the room.  Then, she has those two lamps which also give an "architectural" separation between the fireside grouping and the rest of the room.  So good:

And another great way, by one of my faves, designer Phoebe Howard.   Using daybeds.  The people can sit on a daybed or bench either facing one grouping (toward the fireplace) or facing the other end of the room.  Yet the daybed doesn't act as a big visual obstruction in the room-- it stays open and airy.

[ECBG]

@Oznell 

Thank you so very much.

I taught Interior Design and wrote curriculum for my state for years.  I was going to work for Ethan Allen but went to clothes because it was so much less computer work that I didn't want to work with after teaching.

If I may ask, what was your original career and what led you into the many wonderful designers that you know?

If you and I lived close, we would never stop talking, I'm sure!!!

Lunch soon!

[insomniac2]

A couple of those photos just show how to clutter up a room. (Or where to store extra furniture.)

[Oznell]

@ECBG,  you know that would be one LONG lunch, tongues clattering, ha.

My background is social work, and I have no training in design (despite that fact, I persuaded a local publication to let me write a column on interiors that ran for some years.) 

From childhood I loved houses, and I remember in high school a "home ec" teacher encouraged me in that direction.  But interior design remained a fascinating, avocational subject for me.  I collected books on the topic, like those by designers Mark Hampton and Albert Hadley, many others.   Slowly, over time, I guess I got to stumblingly know what I like, pretty much, and why.

It's a lifelong love, one that's strictly amateur and intuitive.  

[faeriemoon]

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@stevieb wrote:

My own view is that while you can make seating areas or groupings within an enormous room look a bit cozy, there's very little way to disguise that an oversize room is, well, oversize. 

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But do you really need to?  Disguise it, that is.

I actually like oversized spaces.  I guess if you don't, that would be another story.

[faeriemoon]

@Oznell @ECBG I wanted to go to design school after high school.  I always had and interest in it, and given that my grandfather was an architect, I always thought a lot of my extended family members had a flair for it.  However, my mother decided it wasn't "scholarly" enough so off I went to college to study languages and literature.  Here I am more than 40 years later still wishing I had gone to design school.  

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

[Oznell]

Oh, I hear you, so true, @faeriemoon --  the roads not taken!

At least we have the inclination and the time to pursue it as an endlessly fascinating hobby.  And I appreciate so much that there are like-minded people here who 'share the obsession'!

[ECBG]

@faeriemoon 

I didn't go to "design school" either.  Living in the Appalachian mountains growing up, I only knew the "big" names (Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill) when it came time to choose a college; I also worked my way through college working in the summers.

Although, I picked my major to allow the student interaction I wanted to give, Interior Design was part of the major.  I spent all of my time in those classes as well as the art department.

I was able to teach all of the design classes in my department.

As a child, I was constantly creating color displays from items all over the house, under a dinning room table.

I use those color theories now as a fashion stylist.