I actually had the same problem as the OP. My couch is about 11 feet away from my Kinect and I have to lean forward a little bit for my hands to be visible. I would rather have that issue than not enough space. Setup is painless. Not sure if my Kinect ID stuff is working for me yet. Maybe I did not have enough light when I set it up. I also used the smiley card to calibrate as well. So far I haven't had any issues with Kinect going funky on me or anything.
I also wish I had thicker window shades :)







