Decorating and Design - plan for large living room

We're moving into a house that has a 26x30 living room and need help figuring out how to fill / divide the space.
It has standard 8' ceilings, E facing wall has windows/sliding door, N facing wall has windows, W side has 1/2 wall, the other half is the opening to the room, and the S wall is solid. We have a 5 1/2' baby grand piano to take up some space.
We are thinking that the solid wall would we place the ent center. Possibly put in a large sectional sofa. The piano could go in the NE corner.

Any advice / tips?
A few specific questions:
1) what are possible ways to divide a large room into separate sitting areas (TV watching, piano area, etc.)
2) my wife wants a hard floor (wood or tile) for acoustics for the piano. I want carpetting so the kids can play on the floor. Can 2 separate flooring solutions be combined in the same room? For ex, pie shaped tile area in the corner for the piano, the rest carpet.

thx, Don

if the hard floor surface is for acoustic purposes, i can't imagine that a little pie shaped wedge would be significant enough to make a difference. i'd think the whole room would need to be hard..... or does the piano just need to sit on top of a hard floor? :confused:

assuming for acoustic's sake, the dual treatment is sufficient, i think it would look better to use a large area rug under the seating area, and have the whole room tiled or wood or whatever. the pie shaped area seems sort of goofy (no offense).

the way to separate a room into areas is by furniture placement (groupings). simply orient the sofas or sectionals toward the TV or fireplace, etc and use the back of the sofa as the divider. anything going on "behind" the sofa is in a different "area." this means you'd be "floating" the sofa in the middle of the room. then, so that you're not looking at the boring back of a sofa, place a sofa table behind it, and accessorize the top of it, as well as underneath it.

a chair with a side table and lamp (or floor lamp) next to it, placed in a corner or in front of a window instantly creates a "reading nook."

or 2 chairs with a table between can be a "game playing area." (this arrangement can be used directly behind a floated sofa, also.)

rooms this large need to have pieces floated in the center, and not simply shoved up against the walls. however, this can create problems for having table lamps in the center of the room (overhead lighting is not ideal) because you don't want the lamp cords running thru a traffic area. if you don't already have floor outlets, you might want to consider have 1 or 2 installed, after you have your arrangement figured out. place them where they'll be hidden under the sofas or chairs that are floated.

i've got one question about the floor plan: is the opening to the room (on the West wall) on the north end of the room, or the south end, near where the entertainment center will be? (i'm hoping the north end!!!) also, which walls are 26' and which are 30'? thanks!

Hey Don!
I'm certainly NOT a pro but since I've lived with a living room almost exactly the same size as yours for 17 years now I can tell you that Annette is giving it to you straight! The worst thing you can do is to put the furniture against the wall....it looks like a bowling alley if you do. :blah:
I currentl have my living room arranged so that the back of the sofa & the sofa table are almost directly in front of you when you come in the front door. Sounds a little strange I know but, it serves to create a small entry area and it really does break up the room into two zones.
There's an area rug, on the hardwood floor, directly in front of the sofa and I have two recliners, two end tables, and a coffee table arranged in a seating/
TV area there in front of the fireplace. Believe it or not it really is easier to get more seating area with the furniture floating than it is if everything is arranged along the walls.
Round up a helper and just spend a little time shoving furniture from one spot to another until you find an arrangement that works for you. Good luck! :)

Thanks for the tips.

Annette, I believe the S and N walls are 26', E and W are 30'. The opening is on the south side (the full wall.) I can't remember if it's open all the way to the south wall or if there is a few feet of wall extending out. If open, should I add some wall there to create a corner area? The walled portion of the west side backs to the end of the kitchen. I'm considering knocking it down to open the kitchen to the LR and let more light in. So then the only solid wall with no windows would be the south wall.

Don

i don't think you need to add any wall to the south end of the west wall, it's just that the opening being there, on the tv end, means that you'll walk into the furniture grouping that's there. that's all. it just means that an "L" shaped sectional won't work there like i was thinking. but you can still have a sectional there, if you want, but it'll be like Gotcha said - you'll enter the room smack into the back of it. which is okay. since the room is so wide across (26) in front of the tv, you won't have any problem floating a sofa in the middle and also have room to flank it with 2 chairs, or use the sectional (whichever you prefer), and still have room to walk around it all.

as it is now, you can have a game table & chairs in front of the west wall. but knocking it out to open up to the kitchen sounds good, too. that depends on how "cozy" you want the room to be. knocking that half wall out means you'll lose that spot for such a grouping. maybe you could consider turning that west wall into an actual half wall, that's only 4 feet or so high. that'd let light into the kitchen, and you could see into each room, but yet still have a definition there to work with. that's definitely something to think about.....

Thanks Annette - good idea about a half wall. On that wall on the kitchen side are cabinets (a 7 foot base cabinet flanked on each side by a 24" pantry cabinet) that I would lose by taking the wall out. If I make it a half wall, I could keep the base cabinets, maybe have a slightly taller counter on the half wall that could act as a bar area. Guess I could either open it up completely and replace the panty cabinets with base cabinets, or just open up the 7' area, keeping the pantry cabinets. Not sure how that would look. What is more common/would look better - having a "hole" in the wall, or completely opening the area with half wall?

thx, Don

if you just took out the 7' base cabinet and left the 2 pantries, would the pantries be up against walls or other cabinets or just look "free standing"? the north pantry is probably in a corner, but is the south pantry?

if you do decide to take the whole wall out, you'd probably be making room for an island, wouldn't you? so that could make up for lost storage. you might even be able to utilize a couple sections of the base cabinets to make the island, and just have a new top made for it. (we did the opposite, and moved what was an island, up against the wall & put a new countertop on it.)

if you think you'd use a barstool/counter area, you could use the kitchen side of the half-wall for that, and still have a wall to put furniture up against on the LR side.

it all depends on how you need the space to function. i think any of the scenarios would probably look fine.

Thanks again Annette. There is a short wall next to the south pantry, so the outside is finished wall, not cabinet. So from the LR side I guess it would look like a 2' column, the entire thing would be an 11' wall with a 7' opening w/ half wall.
Don

if it'd look like a 2' column standing there, i think i'd lose it and completely open it up and put in an island, or go the bar counter half-wall route. unless it's needed for support or for the adjoining room/s for some reason.

Another thing I thought of is moving the pantry from the south end up next to the north pantry. Then I'd have a 4' pantry and 4' wall section in the corner of the living room, then have a 7' half wall / counter. If this happens to be a load bearing wall I'll willing to install a new header for support.

that sounds like an option, too! you'd probably have to have new crown molding made for the top of the new 4' "unit". but that's no biggy.