How to lay out a long, narrow living room

Many apartments in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have one long rectangle for living and dining, running from the entrance or kitchen to a balcony at the far end. Villas often have long formal rooms too. The proportions are generous, but they ask for a different approach from a square room.

When every piece is lined up against the long walls, the room starts to feel like a corridor and the middle becomes an empty runway. The aim is the opposite: create areas that feel complete in themselves, keep one clear path past them, and give the eye places to stop along the way. Three measurements and a few layouts make it simple.

In a long room, the width is what limits you. With the sofa on one long wall and the TV on the other, the room has to hold, side by side: the sofa's depth, about 45 cm to the coffee table, a table of about 50 cm, a walkway of about 75 cm and a TV unit of about 40 cm. These are common rules of thumb, and they give these minimum widths:

If the TV hangs on the wall with no unit below it, take off about 40 cm. If your room is wider than these figures, use the extra space for a wider walkway or a deeper, softer sofa. The deep 74 cm seats of the Comfo are lovely in a room of about 3.3 m or more, while the slimmer Snoozo and Nuage suit rooms closer to 3 m.

People need to walk the length of the room, from the door to the balcony, the kitchen or the bedrooms. Give them one clear path of about 75 to 90 cm along one long side, and keep everything else out of it.

• Put the path on the side of the doors. If the entrance and the balcony door are both on one long wall, the sofa goes on the other.
• Keep the path straight. A route that zigzags between a table, an armchair and a pouf makes a long room feel smaller.
• Let the path pass behind or beside the seating, never through it. Nobody should walk between the sofa and the coffee table to reach the balcony.

Once the path is fixed, everything else sits in the remaining width, and the room immediately feels calmer.

A long room almost always looks better as two rooms in one. Typical pairs are a sitting area and a dining area, a family sofa and a reading corner, or a TV area and a small majlis for guests.

• A rug for each zone. Two rugs, each sized to its furniture, mark the zones far better than one long runner. Our rug size guide gives the measurements.
• Light for each zone. A pendant over the dining table, a floor lamp by the sofa: each area glows on its own in the evening.
• A soft divider. The back of a sofa, the arm of a chaise or a low console marks the edge of the sitting area without closing the room. In a room about 4 m wide or more, a sofa can float across the width with the path at one end.

Put the sitting zone where the light and the view are best, often by the balcony window, and the dining zone nearer the kitchen.

1. Sofa on the long wall. The sofa sits in the middle of one long wall, the TV opposite, the dining table at the kitchen end. Simple and reliable in rooms of about 3 to 3.5 m wide.
2. Corner sofa at the far end. The long side of an L-shaped sofa runs along the end wall by the window, and the chaise points back into the room, closing the sitting area like an arm. The Comfo corner, 343 cm by 229 cm, turns the end of a long room into a cosy, separate lounge.
3. A modular sofa in two groups. Split a modular sofa into a sofa on the long wall and two ottomans facing it across a coffee table, so the seating forms a small square. Move the ottomans together when you want a chaise for a film night.
4. Two sofas facing across the width. In a room about 4 m wide or more, two compact sofas face each other across a low table, with the path at one end. It is lovely for conversation and for receiving guests. Our guide to two sofas facing each other gives the distances.

• Bring the end walls closer. A slightly deeper colour, a large piece of art or full-width curtains on the short end walls draws them in visually.
• Keep the long walls light. Warm white or soft sand on the long walls opens the room up.
• Use a mirror on a long wall, opposite a window, to double the light and the sense of width.
• Choose round or oval tables. They are easier to walk around and soften the straight lines of a long room.
• Raise furniture on legs where you can, such as side tables and consoles, so more floor shows.
• Light both ends. A lamp at the far end draws people into the whole room, rather than leaving half of it dim.

Draw the room to scale, mark the doors, windows and air conditioning grilles, then place the path first and the furniture second. Mark the sofa, the coffee table and the path on the floor with masking tape, and walk from the door to the balcony a few times with your hands full.

Each sofa page has a Will it fit? tool that draws the sofa to scale against the wall length you type, with the centimetres to spare. A modular sofa such as Comfo also adapts if you move, because its modules can be separated and rearranged for the next room. For a long, slim bench sofa along one wall, ask for a custom sofa: the team replies within 48 hours with a drawing and a price. For the six classic layouts in any room, see living room layouts that work around a sofa.