Sometime in the next few days, I'll be rearranging my living room to become my living room SLASH HOME OFFICE. Very exciting. I've lived in this space for about a year and a half, and have only moved furniture once - to accomodate the amazing curb desk I found a few months back.
(Side note: when I found that desk, I had just decided I wanted to leave my job. I wasn't sure what I was going to do yet - another agency? freelance? Starbucks? - and then I found this solid, amazing, patina-ed barn of a desk. I took it as a sure sign from the universe that I was on the right path with my dreamings, and would need this desk on said path. The old desk was moved to the dining nook and is now used as a bar/credenza. The new desk was shoved in the corner by the couch, as that was the only corner it would fit in at the time. It's... been bugging me.)
Whenever I am rearranging furniture, I first consider the purpose of the space. What do I actually spend the majority of my time doing in there? Is it a communal space, or personal/intimate? That helps identify where major pieces of furniture should go, and how much space and prominence certain set-ups get. Right now, we use this living room solely for hanging out, watching movies, listening to records, reading, and palette-ing on the floor on weekends. So the couch/coffee table/TV combo is the focus point of the room, stretching across the length of it. All the other furniture is situated around that - the record player tucked next to couch for ease of use, the club chairs angled towards the corner fireplace, out of the way of traffic flow. Ah, that's another thing - the front door opens right into this space, so it's also an entryway. Right now I have theatre seats next to the door - a place to throw down my purse and kick off my shoes (and store some extra blankets for all that palette-ing).
In the very near future, this space will have two purposes: all that crap I just said, plus home office (because, yes!, I'll be working from home). I'll now be spending a lot of time thinking and doing and being awesome in this space during the day, as well as maxing and relaxing with Micah in the evenings. So - whatever our solution is, it's got to give equal prominence to both, while acknowledging the flow of traffic from that front door to the rest of the duplex.
Challenge ACCEPTED.