countable uncountable nouns?

[samur]

There....... a sofa, a table and three cahirs.
a) is
B) are
can someone expain me what is the answer and why?
as there are more than one item I thought that it must be "are" but these are all furnitures so should it be "is" or is there any other rule to explain its answer.

[Tdol]

There are different opinions about this. Some use the plural because there are a number of items here (all countable), but others use the sinular because it sounds beter next to the singular article (this is called proximity).