So Sophie,

I am very impressed with your knowledge of couch behavior.

So impressed, in fact, that I had to overcome my usual reticence and offer a sincere Brava.

BRAVA!

There, now wasn't that fun?

And, since you've cracked the question of ugly couches, please help me with the non-related, but similar, problem of furniture layout. I just can't seem to get my living room to feel, well, like a living room. I need a little more definition in the space, rather than a large rectangle with the dining area at one end and the couch and papasan chair at the other. Suggestions?

-Design Impaired

Hey Design,

irst off, thanks for the compliment. I've spent many long years studying couches and their general behavior mechanisms, and what you read was the result of excruciating hours of observation. Couch social structures are exceedingly complex and difficult for a non-couch to infiltrate. They're a suspicious lot by nature and tend to only accept outsiders after many complex group initiation rituals. I would love to explain, but I'm afraid I can't. A renegade Davenport could be reading this right now and I could get turned in to the authorities. I've seen examples of Chesterfield vigilante justice and it's nothing I want to be on the receiving end of, I can tell you that right now.

So on to your design problem.

Getting a house to feel like a home is a difficult process. Often it takes years to master, so don't be discouraged if you haven't got it quite right just yet. The first thing you want to look at is not so much the way that things are arranged, but rather the things themselves. Do they fit in with the design of the house? Do they fit well with your personality? I don't mean to ask you whether they fit in with the image you are trying to convey to any guests you may have, or how you envision yourself to be. Do they fit in with you? Are you a pillowback couch person who happens to have traditional sofas? Are you a prim and proper sort who has couches and chairs that are only fit for lounging? Is the furniture out of proportion for whatever size person you are? These are important things to have decided long before the first furniture purchase is ever made, and I think it's one that more people ought to thoroughly investigate before making that kind of investment.

Provided that you do, indeed, have the right furniture and accessories, we can move on now to the matter of arrangement. (If you haven't got the right stuff, go back to square one, sell the stuff you've got, and get something that matches how you really are. If you buy furniture based on who you fancy yourself to be, you'll never get it quite right and everyone will suffer for it in the long run.) Now, taking a look at the room in question, ask yourself the following:

• What will I really be doing in this room?
• Will there be others?
• Am I trying to maximize comfort, social interaction, or floor space?

It's important to get a good feel for what you're trying to accomplish, too. You say you've got a living room to arrange. Do you mean a family room, for reading, watching TV, and general hanging out in? Or are you referring to a formal living room for use pretty much only when company comes over who you're not suitably comfortable with to invite into the TV room? I don't much like the idea of the latter, so I'm going to pretend we're looking at the former then.

What you need to do is to set up the whole thing so that every seat in the room can view every other seat. This will maximize your social interactions when multiple people are getting together. Also, be sure that every seat in the room has a decent view of the TV, for when you and your friends may be watching a movie.

If you have to, put the backs of the couches facing the dining area, to kind of close it off and make sort of an ersatz border, to more fully define the functions of each area. And get rid of the papasan chair. No one really finds those damn things comfortable anyway. They were trendy in the early 90s, but they have a horribly high center of gravity, making them really unstable for getting in and out of, and there's no really good way to relax in one. Get yourself a loveseat or recliner instead. Everyone will be loads happier about it and then some poor, tragically hip college student can put it in his dorm room, which, let's face it, is the only place those blasted things really belong.

Good luck with the furniture.