52 
House & Garden 
HOW TO GROUP FURNITURE 
A Room Is Successful When the Furniture Finds the Place Where It 
Best Affords Convenience and Comfort 
RANDOLPH W. SEXTON 
A N important point in the final effect 
of a room, although one which is 
not given the proper attention it 
deserves, either by amateurs or professionals, 
is the correct placing of iurniture. Too 
often is a room of good plan and design en¬ 
tirely lacking in necessary sociability and 
informality, if not by the poor selection of 
the furniture, by the entirely improper plac¬ 
ing of it. A room with properly placed 
furniture should give one, when entering, 
the effect of welcome, inviting you in and, 
furthermore, to sit down and be comfortable. 
Very often we seem to have to stand in the 
doorway and hesitate before finding a chair 
which gives this invitation. 
Are there any rules and conventions which 
can help us to place furniture properly and 
overcome this failing? Yes, to a certain 
extent, although all rules in art have to be 
backed by common sense and good taste. 
The best results in placing furniture in a 
room are obtained by considering the dif¬ 
ferent “groupings” which the room requires. 
For instance, in a living room there is gener- 
ally a “music group”, consisting of piano, 
stool, lamp and chair; the “lounging group” 
with davenport, table, tabaret and lamp; the 
“reading group”, composed of chair, lamp 
and bookcase; and these groups, though dis¬ 
tinct, must be so connected that together 
they form a perfect ensemble. 
In a Typical Room 
Supposing as an illustration, we here 
consider the placing and selection of the 
furniture in a living room 15' wide and 25' 
long with fireplace, doors, and windows as 
shown—a typical room. (Figure 1.) The 
first question to settle is—are we to have a 
piano in the room? For there is no way of 
changing either the size or design of a piano, 
except in the choosing of a grand or an up¬ 
right, and in either case there is generally 
only one proper place in the room for a 
piano when the matter of steam heat, 
draughts from doors, and sufficient wall 
space are given proper consideration. Aside 
from the piano and one of even more im¬ 
portance in proper placing, is the davenport, 
both on account of its size and the prac¬ 
ticability of the piece. 
A davenport is a piece of furniture de¬ 
signed strictly for comfort, seldom having 
any good features in design aside from its 
covering, and at the same time helping ma¬ 
terially to accommodate more people in the 
room, as three or even four persons can 
easily bh seated on it at once. For this rea¬ 
son the davenport should be placed as near 
to the center of attraction in the room—in 
most cases, the fireplace. From an archi¬ 
tectural standpoint as well, is there anything 
in the design that plays such a prominent 
part in the decorations of the room as the 
fireplace? By giving the davenport this 
important place in the room, all other pieces 
immediately become subordinate to it and 
must be placed with this in mind. 
To return now to our typical plan—sup¬ 
pose that we are at once confronted with the 
placing of a grand piano in the room and 
the selection of the remaining pieces are 
left to our good judgment. It can easily be 
determined that there is only one wall of the 
room—the south—against which we can 
place the piano, as all other walls are elimi¬ 
nated by windows and doors. Here it seems 
that both the southwest and the southeast 
corners are available, but as it might seem 
that the piano were too near the entrance 
door in the southwest corner, besides being 
in direct line with the draught naturally 
coming through this opening, we decide to 
place the piano in the southeast corner with 
the keyboard facing the room, allowing the 
frame work of the instrument to take up as 
little room as possible. To complete this 
group, we will place a floor lamp by the 
piano stool in the corner and then take up 
the next important matter of placing the 
davenport. 
The Davenport Group 
Although it might seem cozy and even 
practical to place the davenport directly in 
front of the fireplace, still there are always 
arguments against this layout, especially if 
the room is narrow in proportion, and be¬ 
sides, many people cannot see anything soci¬ 
able about a room with the back of the 
davenport facing you as you enter the room. 
So in the case of our typical room, it seems 
best to put the davenport at right angles to 
the hearth, for in this position it gives the 
invitation as you stand in the doorway, and 
at the same time is directly in front of the 
center of attraction of the room—the fire¬ 
place. To complete this lounging group we 
suggest an oblong table back of the daven¬ 
port, supplying space for magazines, books, 
etc., and also a place .for a lamp, as one 
often desires to sit or stretch out on the sofa 
to read. 
A good point to add right here is that the 
effect from the street seen through the front 
windows—the table with its cheerful setting 
of a lamp, magazines, books, and perhaps, 
a vase of flowers, all adds to the proof that 
a table is not out of place there. 
The next consideration is the reading 
group and we have left a very desirable place 
at the other end of the fireplace for it. Here 
we will first put a generous easy chair and 
beside it place a small book stand, which 
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