How to Find the Best Layout for Your Room: An Interior Designer’s Guide to Effortless Elegance

Designing a room layout is like conducting a symphony—every piece must play in harmony, from the furniture placement to the flow of natural light. For homeowners on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, who value quality, comfort, and connection, mastering your room layout is a key step toward achieving a beautiful and liveable home.

Whether you’re transforming a tired living area or breathing life into a coastal apartment, finding the right layout is the foundation of good design. In this week’s blog we explore how to arrange your room properly, unlock the magic of the 2/3 rule, and discover advanced layout tips to elevate your interiors from the merely beautiful to the effortlessly luxurious.

How to Arrange a Room Properly (The Right Way)

If you’ve ever searched “how to arrange a room properly,” chances are you’re stuck on layout challenges that affect flow, comfort, or visual appeal. Here’s how to nail it:

1. Start with Your Lifestyle, Not the Furniture
Think about how you use the space. A living room meant for Netflix and quiet evenings will need a different layout than one designed for cocktail parties or family gatherings. Begin with purpose—then layer in form.

2. Design Around a Focal Point
Every beautifully arranged room needs a centrepiece. It could be a fireplace, a media wall, a stunning window view, a marble coffee table or a large piece of art. Anchor your layout around this feature to create flow and visual balance.

3. Ensure Easy Movement
One of the most common design mistakes is overcrowding. Leave at least 80–100 cm between larger furniture pieces to allow comfortable circulation. This is especially important in open-plan homes—a Northern Beaches staple—where multiple zones need to feel connected yet distinct.

What is the 2/3 Rule for Living Rooms?

The 2/3 rule helps ensure harmony in living room layouts by guiding proportionality:

• Sofa-to-wall: The sofa should be about two-thirds the width of the wall behind it.
  
• Coffee table-to-sofa: Your coffee table should be two-thirds the length of your sofa, although a nested round ottoman with a round coffee table serves the same proportionate purpose.
  
• Artwork-to-sofa: Hang art or mirrors that are roughly two-thirds the width of the furniture below.
  

Why this works: Our eyes naturally seek balance, and the 2/3 ratio creates just enough negative space for a room to feel considered but not contrived. For high-end interior design, these proportional cues distinguish professionally curated spaces from haphazard arrangements.

Deep-Dive: Advanced Layout Principles for Luxurious Interiors

At Orli Interiors, we create custom layouts that reflect your lifestyle and elevate your everyday life. Here are deeper insights into how we approach room layouts for our Sydney-based clientele:

• Conversation-Led Seating Layouts
  For entertaining spaces, especially in living rooms, arrange furniture to promote face-to-face interaction. Create U-shaped or L-shaped layouts using a mix of sofas, accent chairs, and ottomans. Keep side tables and lighting within arm’s reach to enhance comfort and usability.
• Invisible Zones in Open Plan Living
  We often use layered rugs, statement lighting, and subtle shifts in ceiling detail to create distinct functional zones—without walls. For example, a pendant above the dining area and a floor lamp in the lounge subtly divide the space while maintaining visual flow.
• Rugs as Layout Anchors

A well-proportioned rug does more than add softness — it anchors the entire layout. Rugs help define invisible zones in open-plan homes and bring visual cohesion to a furniture grouping. To avoid the space feeling chopped up or undersized, rugs should fit all key furniture pieces either completely on top or with all front legs on and some breathing space at the edges. Too-small rugs make the room feel smaller and disrupt the design flow.

Layout Tips Specific to Sydney’s Northern Beaches Homes

Layout Tips Specific to Sydney’s Northern Beaches Homes

For our clients in Avalon, Manly, or Freshwater, lifestyle is a major influence on design. Here’s how we tailor layouts to suit our local, coastal lifestyle:

• Indoor-Outdoor Flow: Orient furniture to highlight natural light and ocean or bushland views. Keep doorways and sliders unobstructed.
  
• Flexible Spaces: Use modular or mobile furniture to adapt to weekend entertaining, quiet weekday evenings, or school holidays.
  
• Connection and Comfort: Spaces are designed for barefoot living—textural rugs, plush seating, and layouts that invite people to linger.

• Zoning for Balance: Create distinct areas that allow everyone in the family to find their own corner — whether it’s a quiet reading nook, a spot to work from home, or a communal space to gather and connect. It’s about giving each person room to breathe, while still designing for togetherness.

• Outdoor Living, Elevated: Treat alfresco spaces with the same design intention as your interiors — layer them with comfort, style, and function so they feel like a natural extension of your home, not an afterthought.