Worked room · 20 × 15 ft
L-shaped living room with a chimney breast
Two arms, one chimney, and a corner nobody has ever used.
A through-lounge that was knocked into the old dining room, leaving an L with a chimney breast on the inside corner. Both arms are pleasant. The turn between them is where furniture goes to be walked around.
What Room Lab concluded
Spend, measured
strongFunction 74Function is what is wrong. One reversible split.
- Why
- Function is the primary friction at 74. Function scores 74. Multi-job capacity, storage vs. use, work/rest zoning. Movement at 58 is real, but it is not the thing a body hits first. gather and host share one visual and acoustic field with read, and no edge has been declared between them — so the louder job sets the terms for the quieter one. Addresses sensory collision and not enough seats and dead corner with a measured cause behind it. It runs about $25–150, takes about 60 minutes, and is undone the same day.
- Caveat
- Unnamed: whether the chimney breast alcoves are deep enough for a seat; whether the far arm can take a socket without lifting the floor.
- Next
- Place a folding screen, a tension curtain, or a planted trough on the line between the two jobs. Live with it for seven days. Do not also move the bed in the same week. Measure: Can you do job A without seeing job B? Time the walk around the split — it must not pinch 36 inches.
Driven by Function score (74). Strong — every condition scored, ranked, and clear of a tie.
Free moves first
Empty the pile onto a table
One surface. Sort: leave the room / stay in the room / leave the house. Do not buy storage yet.
How to tell it worked: The walk does not grow a new pile in 48 hours.
Then one reversible test at a time
One reversible split
Place a folding screen, a tension curtain, or a planted trough on the line between the two jobs. Live with it for seven days. Do not also move the bed in the same week.
Measure: Can you do job A without seeing job B? Time the walk around the split — it must not pinch 36 inches.
Move the largest piece once
Shift the sofa, island, or bed off the crossing. Live with painter's tape marking the old footprint. Do not buy a new piece this week.
Measure: Primary path ≥ 36". Conversation or work still functions.
Planted edge as a wall
Three sides. Two can be plants in pots. One chair with a back against the third.
Measure: You stay for twenty minutes. The body feels a room.
Not worth buying yet
- Another rug before the walk is clear. Rugs do not fix circulation. They hide it.
- Hardwired statement fixture. Electrical is a watch or professional review is required. Prove the path with plug-in light.
- Decorative storage cubes for the pile. A lid is not a sort. Empty the pile first.