So, my wife and I just moved in to our first grown-up house. Our starter house was all of 850 square feet, where all our hip apartment-sized furniture fit just fine. But now we lucked into a ridiculous deal on someone else's misfortune (foreclosure), and we have 3500 square feet of empty, echo-filled rooms. We spend most of our time in the kitchen, afraid of the vast empty spaces beyond. HOW DO WE ARRANGE A BIG GROWN-UP LIVING ROOM? It's pretty much a blank slate -- we're not keeping any of our old furniture. But we have no idea what to buy or plan for. What do you do with a big, old-school rectangle -- 24' x 15' ??? Ideas? In case you want to picture or sketch the layout: You enter through a 6' archway in the east wall; the wall extends 7' to the left and 11' to the right, and is the only wall with no windows. Opposite the entry is a 6.5' wide fireplace, in the center of the 24' west wall. The fireplace is flanked by 4.25' windows to each side of it. The north wall has 6' wide French doors to the back yard, centered, that open inward. The south wall has 10' of big, sunny windows.
