Plan comfortable spacing between furniture pieces in a room.
Furniture spacing runs on a handful of clearances that have not changed in decades. Sixteen inches between the sofa edge and the coffee table is the sweet spot — close enough to reach a mug, far enough to get your legs past. A main circulation route through a room wants 30 inches; a secondary path squeezing behind a chair can drop to 18. Seating distance from the screen scales with the diagonal: about 1.6 times the diagonal in inches puts a 55 in TV around 7.3 ft away, which is where the pixel structure disappears without the picture filling your peripheral vision uncomfortably. The free floor area left over after the sofa and table tells you whether there is room for the armchair you were also planning.
Furniture Spacing
TV distance (ft) = diagonal in x 1.6 / 12; sofa to table gap = 16 in; main walkway = 30 in; free area = room area - sofa (length x 3 ft) - table (length x 2 ft)
Around 1.6 times the screen diagonal for 4K — 7.3 ft for a 55 in set, 8.7 ft for a 65 in. HD content wants more distance because the pixels are larger.
Pulling seating a few inches off the wall makes a room read as larger and stops upholstery scuffing paint. In a small room, floating the sofa off the wall is usually a mistake — it eats the walkway.