Multigenerational homes
Family room Furniture Planning for Multigenerational homes
Specify the occupied size, operating clearance and route into the building before choosing furniture by catalogue dimensions.
Explore the ideas
Compare the options
- Set the brief
- Use templates at the size of the actual furniture. Include seated users, open drawers and reclined positions where relevant.
- Compare
- Decide which items need to move independently and which benefit from built-in anchoring.
- Before buying
- Confirm that the largest pieces can turn at the entrance, lift lobby and corridor, or specify assembly in place.
Worked example
A deep sectional looks suitable online but may block the only route to a garden door.
Tape its full footprint, including reclined seats, and verify it can enter through the doorway before ordering.
How to test it
Overlay the furniture in its stored and in-use positions, then check both against the measured plan.
Apply it to this space
- Layout
- Use seating groups with a direct passage and place quieter reading seats away from the screen.
- Detail
- Provide separate reading and media light circuits and acoustic soft furnishings.
- Trade-off
- Multiple zones support varied use but may fragment a small common room.
- Test simultaneous activities
- Check sound and sightlines from each seat
The Elixir portfolio
Details worth a closer look
