So I'm buying my first house (well... condo :) ) and the living room / entertainment room is really poorly designed. Here's a pic:

http://www.zahrasefidan.com/ebay/htsetup.jpg

You can see in the picture where I'm planing on putting the couches, and you can see where the 3 front speakers will go (Sub will go up there too... but I didn't include it in my picture).

The problem comes with the surrounds for my 5.1 setup. I understand they're supposed to be directly to the side of the listening position about 3-4 feet above ear level. The problem is... to the right side of the back couch (the ideal listening position) there's a walkway. There's a pillar (marked in purple) that goes to the ceiling and I can mount the speaker there. However, not only would this be 1-2 feet in front of the listening position, it wouldn't look that great as it would stick out from the pillar and get in the way of people walking by.

However, I could mount these speakers at the other location (marked in green). Would that work? It would look better for my setup... and it would keep the speakers behind the ideal listening position. I'm just not sure how this would sound having speakers right behind you in a 5.1 setup like I run.

Any ideas or input? Will everything sound ok if I put my surrounds in the green spots?