Vintage Living Room Furniture, Chisinau

The living room is where people spend the most time and where decisions are hardest, because it has to do three things at once: receive guests, let someone sleep on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon, and look right in both situations.

The distance between seats decides whether people can talk

The rule that changes a room most: between the sofa and the armchair facing it there should be 180-270 cm. Below 180 cm people sit too close and conversation becomes awkward; above 270 cm voices have to rise and the group splits in two. Measure between the seats, not between the walls — that is where it is decided. The coffee table sits 40-45 cm from the sofa, and the rug should run at least under the front legs of every piece, or the zone looks as though it is floating.

What to buy first

The right order is the sofa, then the rug, then everything else. The sofa is the largest piece and the hardest to replace, so it sets the proportions. The rug comes next, because it draws the zone and the size of the table and the position of the armchairs both follow from it. Character pieces — a vintage armchair, a chest, a marble-topped table — are chosen last, once you know what space is left and what is missing. Bought first, they impose a shape on the room that nothing else then fits.

One ceiling light is never enough

The most common mistake in a living room is a single light source in the ceiling. The result is flat light that flattens every texture you paid for. Three sources at different heights resolve the room: the ceiling light for general illumination, a floor or table lamp beside the reading area at 150-160 cm, and a low source — a lamp on a chest — that creates the warm corner. With 2700 K bulbs, warm light, timber recovers its colour; at 4000 K the same wood reads grey.