5 Must-Follow Rules When Arranging Furniture in an Awkward Room

If you're dealing with an awkwardly shaped room in your home and are coming up short on how to best arrange furniture within the space, professional interior designers are here to help.

While awkward rooms certainly pose unique challenges, you don't have to say goodbye to all of your original layout plans and start from scratch. Thankfully, there are ways to embrace a room's shape without designing a strange-looking space.

Below, experts share five key steps they take when working in awkwardly shaped rooms, all of which you'll be able to seamlessly apply to your own home.

Alvin Wayne

Laetitia Laurent, the founder of Laure Nell Interiors, often deals with awkward layouts when designing loft spaces. In these instances, she likes to look for an anchoring wall to kick things off.

«Pick one focal backdrop and stage your most important piece in front of it to help ground the space,» she says. «Add wall details to further anchor that visual: think wall moldings and sconces.»

After taking this step, Laurent recommends throwing rules of symmetry out the window. By incorporating furniture pieces that are organically shaped, «it tricks your eye into looking at a sculptural display rather than a rigid layout,» she says.

Choose an anchor within the room as you plan your design. This will set the tone for the furnituyre arrangement within your space, even if you're dealing with a room that is awkwardly configured.

Design by Emma Beryl / Styling by Britt Albert / Photo by Nick Glimenakis

In addition to choosing an anchoring wall or focal point within a room, designer Emma Kemper, the founder of Emma Beryl, advises pulling furniture off of the walls in awkwardly shaped rooms. Here, she did just that and then anchored everything