Live In Room

Living rooms or the lounge, call it what you may. One thing is for sure, the living room is just that, its the room in your home that you MUST be able to live in. It really has to be a room that as a family you can loaf in, entertain friends, relax and loiter in if you want to! Too hoity toity, and it may end up as a room in the home that has a chevron tape running across its entrance, for the first half of your married life any way.

I know that an urban chic design as above does suit most clients, family and friends but for the sake of this post and those whimpering at the future of having one such as this, we're talk family living rooms today and we'll visit the "chevron room" another day? On that day, I'll title it The Lounge :-)

Now a living room needn't be a room that is cluttered, drab, decorated in every shade of brown and untidy! In actual fact, just as the lounge, the same trends still apply! Ensure that as a room you're inviting friends into, that it maintains a style; but keep it warm, inviting and relaxing.

Well now that you have decided on the purpose of this room, we can get to design!
Clean lines and O P E N living is definitely what its all about, open up the room! If its a closed off room with two sets of doors, change it, open it up to the kitchen if your structure allows and truly allow this room to live! Look out for load bearing walls (a wall that is double the size of a standard brick that is) to see whether this is an option - if not, call me - we'll find a way! The idea is to try and open this room up to the kitchen to give that laugh, eat and pray a place in the home! If you take a look at my previous posts on "kitchens", you'll see what I mean, here is another idea!

If you are able to, open the living room up to your outside entertainment area to bring the outside into your home; a great way to do this is with beautiful stack doors! This gives me an idea for a future post...

Many people forget that the ceiling is actually a focal point of any room; depending your home, if you're lucky enough, exposed rafters are a popular choice. If you're not so lucky to have this as an option, you'll be pleased to know that clean ceiling lines with dimmable down lighters and a central light piece are just as sought after. Don't allow ceilings to be an oversight, if they are in need of replacement - do it, a great way of modernising a room is to replace ceilings and cornicing. If your ceilings have the old cover strips, lets remove them and skim the ceiling instead - you will be amazed how the lines of the room change. If your living room and kitchen open into one another, its vital that the ceiling flows in order to avoid that "renovated on top of a renovation" look!

Lastly, shelving is the much talked about fixture on the street at the moment! I really like what I have been seeing around, most designs are practical yet stylish and offer you a solution for storing CD's, books, DVD's and other natter in an organised yet fashionable style. The shelving is over-sized with your flat screen being at the center of the system, the utilisation of angled shelves, glass, solid doors and various depths of straight shelves all make for an interesting piece of browsing whilst you leave your guests to finish off the dinner smattering to become acquainted with you and your home!