Most people choose furniture by looking at it. But a sofa, a table or a chair also decides small things that repeat every day: where you drink your first coffee, whether the family eats at the table or in front of the screen, where guests end up sitting, and how easily you get from the door to the kitchen. Change the furniture and those routines change with it.
This guide starts from how a room is actually used, then works through seating, tables, walking routes and materials, with typical dimensions for each.
Start with your routines, not a floor plan
Before measuring the room, write down what happens in it on ordinary days. A short list is enough:
- Mornings: who passes through, where bags and keys land, whether anyone sits down.
- Evenings: how many people sit together, and whether they talk, read or watch a screen.
- Meals: how often the dining table is really used, and by how many people.
- Guests: how many come at once and how long they stay.
The answers tell you what the room must do most often. A living room where four people watch films every night needs a different layout from one used mainly for conversation with two or three guests. Plan for the routine that repeats, not for the one occasion a year.
Seating sets the tone of the evening
The shape and depth of a sofa quietly decide how people sit. A seat depth of around 55–60 cm keeps people upright, which suits conversation and guests. Deeper seats, from about 60 to 65 cm, invite lounging and lying down, which suits film nights and slow weekends. Seat height is typically 42–45 cm; lower seats feel more relaxed but are harder to get out of.
Layout matters as much as the piece itself. A long sofa facing a screen makes the screen the centre of the room. Two armchairs turned towards each other create a place to talk. A curved shape, such as the Janette curved sofa, lets people sit at a slight angle to one another, so conversation feels natural. For households where everyone gathers in the same spot each evening, a model from our sectional sofa collection gives each person a full seat and room to stretch out.
A space with one clear purpose shows the principle. In the outdoor cinema lounge on the AL REEM yacht, every seat faces the same point, so the arrangement itself tells people what the space is for.
As a general rule, keep facing seats no more than about 2.5–3 m apart. Beyond that, people raise their voices or stop talking across the room.
The table decides where meals happen
If the dining table is hard to reach or uncomfortable, meals move to the coffee table or the kitchen counter. A few common measurements keep the table in use:
- Allow about 60 cm of table width per person, and 70 cm if people like more room.
- Leave 75–90 cm between the table edge and the wall or the next piece, so chairs can be pulled out while someone walks behind.
- Dining tables are typically 74–76 cm high; check that the chairs leave a comfortable gap between seat and tabletop.
If the table also serves as a desk during the day, choose chairs you are happy to sit on for hours and a size that leaves space for a laptop and papers next to the place settings. A table such as the Serenity dining table becomes the centre of daily life only when it is sized and placed for the way the household eats and works.
The coffee table follows the same logic. Placed about 40–45 cm from the sofa, at roughly seat height or slightly lower, it is close enough to reach a cup without leaning forward and far enough away to walk past.
Small paths shape daily habits
Every room has routes people use without thinking: from the entrance to the kitchen, from the sofa to the balcony, from the bedroom to the bathroom. Main routes are typically 80–90 cm wide; secondary paths can be around 60 cm. When furniture blocks a route, people find another way, and part of the room stops being used.
Landing places matter too. A console near the entrance collects keys and post instead of the dining table. A side table within arm's reach of each seat means nobody balances a cup on a cushion. Our article on how circulation patterns influence furniture placement looks at these routes in more detail.
Choose materials for how the room is used
A material should suit the daily routine, not only the colour scheme. Genuine leather can be wiped clean and takes on a softer look with use, which works well in busy family rooms and on dining chairs. Fabric feels warmer to the touch and suits quiet reading corners and bedrooms. At Sitdesign we use genuine leather only, in 76 colours across 12 colour families, and Italian leathers form our top leather group. Fabric upholstery is also possible, and we accept customer's own material (COM).
A reading corner shows how material, shape and placement work together: an armchair with good back support, such as the Oscar armchair, a side table, a lamp at shoulder height and a window nearby.
When standard sizes do not fit the routine
Our catalogue has standard models, and most rooms work well with them. Sometimes a routine asks for something different: a deeper seat for someone tall, a longer sofa for a family of five, or a narrower table for a tight dining area. Custom dimensions are available on request. Every piece is handmade in our own factory in Büyükçekmece, Istanbul, with kiln-dried beech frames and high-resilience (HR) foam over sprung seating, so a changed size keeps the same construction.
If you are planning a room around the way you live, note down your routines and the room's measurements, then contact us for leather samples and a quote.
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