Furniture Buying Guide

The 36-Inch Rule: Furniture Layout Walkway Clearance Explained

A living room can look perfect and still feel wrong. The problem isn’t style — it’s circulation. This guide explains the science of furniture clearance, kinetic flow, and the 36-inch rule, showing how human movement, furniture depth, and walkway math determine whether a room feels calm or constrained. As the cornerstone of our Furniture Layout & Room Flow series, it connects clearance rules, ergonomic comfort, and spatial physics into one practical system you can apply to any living room.