Is it okay to put a sofa in front of the door? Designers and homeowners debating a renovation of their area often disagree on this issue. Many people are adamantly opposed to placing the sofa in front of the door because they are concerned that it will block feng shui or just look awkward in the space. 

However, as Benjamin Ibanez, senior interior designer at FCI London, points out, "certain living room layouts mean that putting the sofa in front of the door is simply unavoidable. But this definitely doesn't mean that the room can't look stunning; you just need to work a bit harder to decide the right spot for your sofa and then find a sofa size that works best in that spot."

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How to Place the Sofa in Front of the Door? 

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to positioning a sofa in front of the door, but there are certain tricks to ensure that your sofa enhances the architectural aspects of your room and reflects the mood of the space.

Below we share some tips from our designers on different ways to place the sofa in front of a door, especially for smaller rooms: 

Back of the sofa facing the entryway

For the open-plan living room and game room at our Coulins project, we had no choice but to set some sofas facing the doors. And this room was super tricky because, as you can see, there are not one but two doors, one is leading outside (behind the sofas) and the other opens up into the kitchen area (perpendicular to the sofas).  

While arranging the sofas, we kept some distance between the back of the sofas and the door to create a sort of passageway for anyone going outside or towards the kitchen - this allows freedom of movement which is essential in a setting like this one:

Use area rugs to define the space

Continuing on the example above, you’ll also notice that we went with a bespoke rug under the sofas. This customised rug was designed by Rina Vastu, especially for this space and manufactured by FCI London so that it truly complements the sofas and helps clearly mark out the sitting area. 

Sofa perpendicular to the door

Another setting that works really well is to arrange the sofa perpendicular to the door. Some parts of the door will likely be blocked in this setting, so you can look for sofas with smaller seat depths and sofa depths. 

You can see how wonderfully this worked out for our Redington road project’s living room:

To make the setting seem natural instead of forced, we arranged the modular sofa in a sort of circular or organic shape. Here’s how the room looks from the outside:

View Our Luxury Sofa Collection

Use an L-shaped sofa that faces the door 

When the room opens up to a window, the most sensible setting involves placing the sofa in front of the window, so it faces the door. If you’re concerned about the sofa blocking the light from the window, you can go for low-profile sofas.

It would be best to either use two sofas for this or a single, L-shaped sofa. 

Summing Up

In an ideal setting, a sofa should not be placed in front of a door since you don't want to block it and you don't want people to walk into the back of the sofa.

However, sometimes there is no way around it because of the room layout (especially with small rooms) or the size of the sofa. So you have to make this placement work.

In such situations, it is possible to make it work really well if there is adequate room and the sofa's back has good fabric. However, there must be enough room to maintain a comfortable flow of movement. Additionally, you should take care to reduce any potential visual hindrances.

Summing up, if possible, it’s best to avoid it and if it’s not possible, try to take help from an expert interior designer who can guide you with your sofa selection and placement.

If you need help selecting a sofa for your space or deciding the layout, you can book an appointment and our interior designers will be in touch.