Get the big furniture off the walls and use color to create great spaces. All furniture shown from Rowe, avaliable at Hildreth's.

Good decisions come from wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.

As such, you can take my word here. Good furniture arrangements come from good planning. Developing clear "To Do" goals for your furniture scheme is a logical beginning, but what about the rest of the furniture you want to have in a room?

First, make sure all the furniture serves a purpose. Slackers (that means the odd, seldom used piece that provides no accent, interest, or sentimental value) should be required to leave the room. Rooms with too much furniture feel crowded, because they are.

The easiest and most effective way to arrive at the best plan is by using graph paper and templates. Draw a floor plan on graph paper using one or two graph squares to represent one actual foot of space. This represents quarter inch or half-inch scale. I usually use half-inch scale as I find it easier to work larger. Show where the doors, windows, radiators, and fireplace etc., are positioned on the layout, and draw in the electrical outlets too.

Using the same scale as for the floor plan, measure, draw and cut out the major pieces of furniture too. Using markers or crayons, color them as close to reality as you can. One of the most important pieces of information you'll get about how the completed room arrangement will look, is whether the colors of the room are spread around in a balanced way. You don't want to wind up with all the big brown pieces on one side of the room. You'll get the best effect by mixing color and pattern, as well as by mixing the tall and/or big pieces with smaller pieces throughout the room. Be mindful of furniture scale. Don't put a dinky table next to an oversized chair. However, two small armchairs and a small table can be grouped to balance a larger piece like a sofa.

As a general statement, creating warmth and intimacy in a room combines many factors, but meeting scale with scale is key. Balance the scale of the furniture with the scale of the room. You can create more visual flow, top to bottom by varying the elevations of the different pieces you are using.

Here are a few tips to help with furniture placement as well as pointers on where furniture can be placed for maximum visual effect and balance.

No matter what room you are planning, always place the biggest pieces of furniture first, since they take up the most floor space. Keep in mind too, how "traffic" will naturally flow around and through the room and plan for the "traffic paths" to go around the main furniture groupings, unless there is no alternative. Good space planning takes into account human dimensions as well as the space needed for doors and drawers to open easily. For that reason, allow at least 24 inches walking space.

In your dining room, allow at least three feet from the table edge to the wall. Space is needed to pull out a chair and sit comfortably without feeling cramped. In bedrooms, leave 24 inches between the bed and the wall, and at least 36 inches between the edge of the bed and any door that opens into the room. If you have double beds, allow 18 inches between them.

Sometimes, through no fault of your own, the focal point includes a view of the radiator. This vision is hardly "uplifting". Move the templates on the graph paper to see if the furniture arrangement you have in mind, can be flipped so that a major furniture piece, the sofa for example, sits with the back to the radiator. Pull it out about a foot for good air circulation, and arrange the other pieces around it accordingly. If that doesn't work, there are other solutions. A draped table could work, perhaps with a large flower arrangement, or a lamp. Folding screens are great. They can hide so much, anywhere.

Speaking of focal points, you might be using a wall unit with a TV for that purpose, or else have the conversation grouping just in front of the TV. The best distance from the screen for comfortable viewing is three times the size of the screen (TV screen size is measured on the diagonal). This means that if your screen is 30 inches, positioning the sofa 90 inches away is optimum.

When the room is large enough, the sofa and chairs that make up the conversation area can "float" as long as there is at least three feet behind the sofa for passage. Or consider if the area can be placed on a diagonal. This is sometimes an inspired solution for smaller rooms.