Hi,

We are at the electrical stage and trying to pin down a way to arrange our great room so we can decide on floor plugs for lamps and other lighting. I have zero skills in furniture arranging or visualizing flow so I would greatly appreciate feedback from those who do.

Some potentially helpful things:

- We don't have any tv in the room.

- We want to plan for a family of 8 (currently 6) to comfortably sit/sprawl and listen to stories or talk. In our current home, those are the 2 most common activities besides wrestling & toys that take place in our great room, and in the new home we built a nearby play/rough room for the wrestling & toys. :)

- We want it to flexible for larger gatherings, with the ability to add folding chairs, etc. We don't do any formal entertaining but often have book group type gatherings with ~20 people.

- There's a lovely view out the windows.

- The adjacent room with a double pocket door will house a piano. It will stand open to the great room most of the time.

- The hardwood floors are throughout the adjoining rooms.

- We have a soffit running around the outside of the room, with the effect of a tray ceiling. We are going to do RGB led strip cove lighting there. White most of the time, colors for fun/holidays.

- There is a solatube in the middle of the ceiling, and we would like to keep other lighting out of the ceiling if possible to keep the effect of the tray.

We modeled the feel of our room (but not necessarily the flow/arrangement) after this one:

https://www.houzz.com/photos/libertyville-not-so-big-showhouse-traditional-living-room-chicago-phvw-vp~370974

https://www.houzz.com/photos/libertyville-not-so-big-showhouse-traditional-living-room-chicago-phvw-vp~370968

(The same lighting looks very different in the professional photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/SarahSusanka/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10150490554114539 . We are doing the same white trim under the soffit and stained trim at the bottom of the soffit.)

The area under the "tray" is 16' wide and 13'5" deep. There's a larger picture here along with a floorplan overview for the first floor: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-9GN9jQ/ .

Thanks!