Corner sofa: chaise on the left or on the right?

Most mix-ups with corner sofas come down to one question: left as seen from where? At Pufflo, and on every one of our sofa pages, left and right are always named as seen when you stand in front of the sofa and face it. A chaise left sofa has the chaise on your left as you look at it.

The catch is that it flips the moment you sit down. On a chaise left sofa, the chaise is on your right once you are seated. So when you plan, stand where you will usually look at the sofa from, often the middle of the room or the TV wall, and face the spot where it will go.

A small trick avoids mistakes: stick a note on the wall at each end of the sofa's spot, one saying left and one saying right, as seen from where you stand. Then draw your sketch the same way round.

A chaise reaches far into the room. On the Comfo, it extends 229 cm from the wall, against 114 cm for the rest of the sofa. If it sits on the side where people come into the room, everyone has to walk around it, and the room feels blocked from the first step.

So the rule to start with is simple: put the chaise on the side away from the way in. The open end of the sofa then faces the entrance and welcomes people in, and the chaise becomes a quiet corner on the far side of the room.

Apply the same thinking to every busy route: the way to the balcony, the kitchen or the bedrooms. If the room has two ways in, keep the chaise away from the one used most. In a family home, that is usually the route to the kitchen.

If one end of the sofa will touch a side wall, the chaise usually goes on that side. It then runs along the side wall, the sofa hugs the corner of the room and the open end faces into the space. This is the most space-efficient way to use a corner sofa, because the chaise fills a corner that is often empty anyway.

Before you decide, check two things on that side wall:

• It must be at least as long as the chaise is deep: 229 cm for the Comfo, 210 cm for the Doudou and 152 cm for the Nuage corner.
• If there is a window on that wall, make sure the chaise will not sit in the full afternoon sun. Lounging in direct sun is hot, and even good fabrics fade faster there; our guide to sun and fading explains why.

When the room's corner and the way in are on the same side, the way in wins: a chaise that blocks the entrance is felt every single day.

The chaise is often the favourite seat in the house. Whoever stretches out on it looks straight ahead, towards the opposite wall. If your TV or your view sits off-centre, a chaise on that side gives the straightest line of sight, with no twisted neck after a long film.

Two details are worth a look in UAE homes before you choose:

• Air conditioning. Avoid placing the chaise right under a split unit or a ceiling outlet. Lying still under a cold stream of air gets uncomfortable quickly, even on a hot day.
• Sun. Big windows are a joy, but a chaise right in front of west-facing glass gets the full heat of the afternoon. Sheer curtains help, and so does a little distance.

When the way in, the TV and the room's corner all point to different sides, keep the order simple: the way in first, then the walkway, then the view. You use that route dozens of times a day; you watch the screen for a few hours.

Once you know the side, check the room depth on that side. The end of the chaise needs a walkway in front of it if people pass: about 60 cm for an occasional path, 75 to 90 cm for a main one.

The coffee table then sits in the crook of the L, 40 to 50 cm from the front of the main seat and from the inner side of the chaise, so both are within reach. On the Comfo, the chaise reaches 115 cm beyond the front of the main seat, which leaves a natural pocket for a square or round table. For the full depth budget of a room, see our guide to what size sofa fits your living room.

Stand facing the spot where the sofa will go, then read across. Sides are always as seen when you face the sofa.

If two lines of the table disagree, the way in comes first, then the walkway, then the view. And if the room has busy routes on both sides, a straight sofa with an armchair can be a better answer than a corner sofa.

Mark the sofa on the floor with masking tape, chaise included, and walk in and out of the room a few times as you normally would, with shopping bags or a tray in your hands. If you find yourself stepping around the chaise, move the tape to the other side and try again. It takes ten minutes and settles the question for good.

Then open the Will it fit? tool on the Comfo, Doudou or Nuage page. Type the length of your wall and you see the wall and the sofa drawn to scale, with the centimetres you have to spare. Each sofa is handmade for you when you order, the Doudou and the Nuage with the chaise on the side you choose, so this small check is worth it. The Comfo is fully modular: its chaise is an ottoman you slide in front of a seat, so you can move it to the other end later if your room changes. For a longer chaise or a different shape, ask for a custom sofa: the team replies within 48 hours with a drawing and a price.