You have invited friends and family members to your home or apartment to celebrate a special event. You want to make sure the party leaves a warm and fuzzy feeling inside of each guest that attends the gala affair. You have created a delectable menu of appetizers, as well as stocked the bar with plenty of the most popular brand name liquors and liqueurs. Now comes the hard part.
You have to spend an hour or so strategically rearranging the furniture to make the most of the entertainment space where the party is expected to unfold.
Interior designers have different ways to optimize a party space. From opening up a room to ensuring the party room does not look in Martha Stewart’s eyes, busy, interior designers get the most out of any room in a home. One of the most popular furniture arrangement strategies relies heavily on a centuries old philosophy referred to as Feng Shui.
Here are some tips for arranging your furniture when throwing a party:
Move Furniture to the Room’s Perimeter
Just exactly what do the smiling faces on QVC mean when a room is too busy? The answer is a room has way too much stuff on the floor, as well as along the walls. As the most effective way to create a cozy ambiance that encourages interaction, you should move the furniture to the sides of the room where you plan to entertain. Placing chairs in groups of two or more along the perimeter encourage guests to take a load off and have a conversation.
Good Riddance to Coffee Tables
Coffee tables represent a tripping issue and with your party room full of guests, the likelihood of someone tripping over a short coffee table grows considerably. Coffee tables are good for placing magazines, not acting as spaces for guests to leave drinks and appetizer plates. Move every coffee table to a closed off room during the entire bash.
What’s the 20% Rule?
Let’s say you expect 50 guests to attend the party. If you follow the 20% seating rule, you should leave enough seats for 10 guests to sit down and enjoy the festivities. If you leave too many single chairs or dual to triple seat couches, you will restrict the movement of your guests.
Move the Television away from High Traffic Areas
If you are not hosting a Super Bowl or Oscar Night party, you should relocate the TV to a light traffic area of a room. Even better, move the big screen into a smaller room, place a few chairs near the television, and explain to guests they can watch whatever they want in the adjacent room.
Unobstructed Entrances
You probably have opened up most of your house for guests to move about easily. It’s a welcoming gesture that loses its luster whenever a guest encounters a chair, couch, or table blocking one or more entrances. Make sure to clear all doors and entrances of furniture to open up every room and yes, make the rooms look less busy.
Small Groups of Seats
We have already mentioned clustering a few chairs at the perimeter of the party room. If you want to make the center of the room hop with lively conversations, arrange the seats in small groups that accommodate up to four guests. An effective strategy is dividing the party room into four sections, with each section containing a small group of between two and four seats.
Break Out the Creative Furniture
The room where you decide to hold a party should not be limited to the furniture pieces sitting in the room. For example, if you have a beautiful sculpture or designer lamp in another room, you can move the decorative piece into the party room to enhance the ambiance. Optimize the most attractive furniture pieces in your home by getting creative with placement.
How to Arrange Furniture to Encourage Feng Shui
In Chinese lore, Feng Shui represents a set of laws that define spatial arrangements (like furniture) to match a flow of energy. Feng Shui is a list of concise suggestions to optimize a space both in how the space appears and how the space feels. Ambiance is a huge part of the ancient Chinese artistic philosophy, and Feng Shui can play an integral role in how you arrange your furniture when throwing a party.
Sofa
At the heart of Feng Shui is stability. There is not a better way to produce an aura of calmness than by placing the living room sofa against one of the walls. Make sure the sofa exudes comfort to maximize the Feng Shui tenet of security and stability.
Round Shaped Furniture
The spatial Chinese design philosophy frowns on arranging furniture that have sharp angles and corners. Sharp corners and angles designed for furniture create what is called “poison arrows, which direct negative energy towards a specific point in a room. Instead, Feng Shui encourages the arrangement of rounded pieces of furniture that spread a much more diffuse flow of positive energy that covers more area of a party room.
Single Chairs
Although a sofa positioned against one of the walls is a major principle of Feng Shui furniture arrangement, another important interior design element is to add a spacious loveseat and at least one single seat chair. The addition of a loveseat and at least one single chair increases the number of seating options for guests and thus, the new furniture arrangement closely follows the Feng Shui tenet of producing a warm, inviting environment.
Exception to the Round Furniture Rule
The lone exception to the round furniture rule comes into play after you arrange a loveseat and at least one single chair. A square coffee table placed within the perimeter of the new furniture arrangement allows guests to put their drinks and appetizer plates on an easy to access surface.
Finally, the goal of any furniture arrangement when throwing a party is to highlight the attractive features of each piece of furniture. By installing radiant Qi-Activating Lights, you can control the positive flow of energy that shines brightly on your most visually appealing pieces of furniture.