apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I think the set up looks pretty good. If entertaining is important to you, then I would go with what you have in the floor plan. I definitely wouldn't do the dining room in that small second bedroom, but it seems like the tv and couch would work pretty well.

I would keep the small room at the top left of the diagram as your "den" - tv, reading, relaxing, personal space. It would be awkward for the dining room to be so small, closed off, and far away from the kitchen. Then, I would turn the table and bring it down (in the diagram) towards the wall (maybe even against) and create a small seating area next to the deck door. Then the large room would be for entertaining, both dining and lounging. It's a decent size main room and could act as both. A real picture of the space would also be helpful to get an idea of what you're working with. Good luck!

The TV room is too far from the Kitchen to be a dining room. If you are entertaining you will not be able to talk to any of your guests from the kitchen.
I would try incorporating comfy chairs into the larger dining room so that it was an inviting place to spend time doing things other than eating as well. Maybe upholstered chairs? a high couch or dining bench?

I would try and make the thru-room into a living and dining space. For both entertaining guests over dinner, but also a comfy place to chat over a cup of tea with friends. Maybe get a corner sofa and swap the rectangular dining table for a circular and maybe collapsable one. And think about hanging the TV on a wall instead of having a huge TV stand.

We did this at our house. It greatly improved our quality of living. It's also a nice way to keep you upholstry away from all of the smells and oils found in kitchen.

I like that cozy little TV room. But I agree with other comments here that you should make the new dining room (the 11.5 x 13.5) space into a living/dining room. One table in the middle of that nice-sized room is going to look lonely. If you could afford to, you should put another couch or seating area in that room.

We have a loveseat from Overstock.com against the wall w/ a long dining table from Ikea, and some regular comfy dining chairs. It makes a nice sitting/surfing-on-laptop /entertaining room. The loveseat is really comfortable for long term sitting and fits the table nicely, like a booth type seat. It is our fav. spot in the house. My husband and I both can set up laptops side by side and have togetherness while doing work/play online. The table is also great for games and crafts with friends. Maybe you could try this concept. It would make your room seem bigger because everything would be pushed over toward the wall. The biggest bother is that you would have to move your pendant lighting if you have any above the table to be centered with the eating area. It probably sounds weird but it really looks nice...

If you entertain more than you lounge on the sofa, then yes. If you dine at your table less than you lounge, then no.

Invest some money and change your swing in rear door into a swing out. Then you can easily move the dining table into
that area, move your living room into the dining room and you will reap another bedroom, which is great for resale and use. Use as a craft room separtate office for you etc.

I say go for it, do what works for you. Straying from the intended layout of a place for some reason can be hard, but if it makes sense give it a try. You might be surprised at how well it works out! This is your space that you are living in so do what you have to do to make it fit your needs!

I say just try it out for a few weeks. You can always decide to rearrange later. Just hold off on painting etc until you make a decision which room will be what, will be worth it in the end.

I was able to convince my other half to live in our 1 bedroom like a studio and convert the bedroom into a giant office/den for work, study, and hobbies by simply surprising him with the new layout and promising to change it back myself if we decided it wasn't working. To his surprise he ended up loving the arrangement and wouldn't let me even consider going back. To be honest I was a bit skeptical of it at first too but no way to tell till you try it.

I would take down the wall between the living room and the dining room and I will make it a big open space for dining and living.

Why not? Maybe you can incorporate more than just a dining table and chairs in that space though--perhaps a small sitting area or loungey corner?

If you are more concerned about how your quality of life is than resale, I would put the dining room in the current bedroom and then try to find a way to open up that wall (like having very high upper cabinets and some kind of open window between the two). But doing that makes the condo effectively a one-bedroom instead of a two-bedroom and that might lower its value. Do you need the rear door, legally? That seems like a space-waster. If I were keeping this apartment long-term I might get rid of that, put some cabinets against that wall and then blow out the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom entirely (maybe a small island instead). I know that time and money might make that impractical, but it is what I might do.

michelle@chictip, I was going to suggest that but you beat me to it :)

My boyfriend and I switched our huge livingroom with our tiny bedroom to create a small, cozy TV room and a larger bedroom. It ended up working out really well for us and suits us at this time in our life. It was so scary to do and everyone swore up and down it would be a bad idea but I wouldn't change it for anything. It was a much more sensible use of space for us. I say go for it.

Yes!! My livingroom is currently in the dining room space. It's bright and sunny there, the best spot in the house!

I was thinking the same thing as others: use upholstered dining chairs, a bench, add a loveseat against one wall, etc. so you get the feel of a living room but make it work for dining as well. If it will work, angle the table the other way and add a sitting area in the other half of the room (again, using upholdtered dining armchairs as your lounge chairs so they can do double duty).

Yesterday's post of Lotta Jansdotter's apartment had that fabulous doubledecker table/desk. That table, as the center of a "library" with comfortable chairs, would make a great main room.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/inspiration/lotta-jansdotters-san-francisco-apartment-sunset-magazine-076791

I think you have a good idea with the TV room. I wouldn't do any renovations that would cancel this as a 2 bedroom, but French doors into the TV room might work well.

Cancelling the rear door is a great idea. Sure opens up a lot of possibilities for your kitchen.

I think you should knock down a wall and turn the living/dining into a great room or put in some french doors that face out to the living room and seal up the hallway. If you cannot remodel then no, I don't like the dining room being so far away from the kitchen and in such a closed room.

It's your place, use it the way you live. Don't let some silly architect run your life.

Regarding resale: Seriously, are you guys suggesting just because they may want to sell one day, they should spend years living in a way they are not comfortable with? It's very easy to rearrange the apartment back into a two bedroom at any time.

I agree with using the space as both living and dining (unless you own, then just take out the wall that separates) one space saving idea if you use the dining room table in the main room, try using a bench instead of chairs on the wall side of the table also, using good sized dining room table chairs in the middle of the room opposite the couch, face them towards the couch for entertaining and you can just turn them around and move up to table when dining. another idea i love that my godmother has in her house is using a scaled down couch on one side of a large round table, it sounds weird but looks great when the pieces are matched right. bottom line get some good pain reliever and just start moving things around until you find something that works!

Careful about knocking down walls - in a small place like this, you may appreciate having a separate getaway room for reading, watching TV, listening to music or just dreaming while the other person is entertaining a friend or working. This would also make it possible to escape from the TV to the dining room - otherwise, the only noise free space is the bedroom.

It's just furniture, right? You can always move it back...

I would make a list of everything you DO in your apartment, and the areas that you use for them (or potentially could). Do you eat a formal dinner every night, or are you more likely to eat in front of the tv? What kind of entertaining do you do?

Personally, I like a dining/livingroom space. If you can get a table with leaves to expand with more guests or maybe a round table, that might work. The other space could stay a nifty den/office.

I also like the idea of French doors-- they open things up without the cost and committment of tearing down walls until you're ready.

And you can always move it back! Have fun!

Thoughts to consider…is the small bed room large enough to accommodate the size of your TV without it feeling too large, will you be comfortable? More importantly what do you spend more time doing hanging out on the couch or around the dinning room? You could put a small table in the living room for the two of you. For dinner parties perhaps gather around a large coffee table with pretty floor cushions if you tend to have causal meals with friends. Or you could invest in a gate leg table you could expand during parties.

Eating on the floor is for dogs.

"Eating on the floor is for dogs."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I lived with a similar layout once, and we just did the living/dining solution. We didn't entertain, much, but that layout worked for us when we did, and made the place more comfortable day to day. We used the second bedroom as our home office.

Come to think of it, our house had a similar plan, at least for the living/dining/kitchen area. And we had a big screen tv, too. Table off to the side, sofa and two comfy chairs perpendicular...

I think your diagram is great.

Good setup with the second bedroom being a den. Only thing I would do different is try the TV stand between the bedroom door and closet door and the sofa across from that. With those two fixed, you should have enough room to add another chair for seating. I would probably remove the bedroom door also...you aren't using it as a bedroom, so it's not like you need the privacy and it would help it from feeling shut off from the rest of the condo.

Rotate the dining table and bring it as close to the kitchen as possible. Add a few comfy chairs (or possibly a loveseat) at the other end of the room (closest to the balcony and bedrooms) for sitting in the main room. It is a big enough space to do both without overcrowding. People should have a place to sit and be comfy before dinner and be called to the table when it's done.

I really appreciate all of the great comments! We are currently looking into installing double French Doors between the spaces we want to use for a Den and Dining Area. I agree that comfort and function is the foremost priority, but we also want to keep the second bedroom in tact because it's an important resale point in our area. My husband is also finishing his MBA, so it's nice to have the option to "close" the space when he needs to study (but the French doors would let us open it up too).

I hadn't previously considered changing the direction that the rear or balcony door swings open - this could be a space saver. We love the idea of rotating the table and moving the it closer to the kitchen to allow room for another seating area with a couple comfy arm chairs.

We currently have a small bistro table to the side of the living room and a really big (92"x40") sofa in the living room and neither are working out. The biggest challenge will be removing the old sofa. I'm in a 3rd floor walk up and we had to hoist the sofa up the rear side of the building because it wouldn't fit up the stairs. Then we had to squeeze it through the 32" rear door. We couldn't bring it up the front stairs because of the angled front entrance.

As some people have already said, I would take the wall down between the living room and the den and merge the living room and 2nd bedrooom spaces. Once merged, I would locate the dining table at the end of the space next to the kitchen with the long side of the table (60" side) situated width-wise (along the 11'6" wall) in the space. This configuration should open up a living area adequate to accommodate a comfortable living room furniture arrangement.

As for your office space, currently residing in the second bedroom, either one or both of the two closets could be reconfigured to house a workspace or you could create a floor-to-ceiling wall of cabinetry across the 8.5' end wall which could house your workspace behind closeable doors. Ikea, Poliform, and other cabinetry/furniture retailers offer this type of configuration.

If you wanted to be ambitious, I would suggest removing the two closets (hall and 2nd bedroom) in addition to the 2nd bedroom wall. This change would add a space roughly 11'x10' to your living room space. To recoup the lost storage, the closets would be replaced with a more flexible and capacious wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinetry across the resulting 11' long endwall.

Good Luck!

John H, why stop there? How about knocking down ALL the walls and just have one large space? After all, who needs privacy? And why keep built-in closets when you can knock them down so you have to buy more furniture? It all makes perfect sense.

John's advice was to take down the walls and closets and build in cabinetry. I rather think it's a decent idea - they are dealing with little more than coat closets as is. To be honest, on resale, the bedrooms aren't that large - the next person to buy it more than likely would want to do the same and if they have it done, it will list for one really great one bedroom condo.

I was considering saying the floorplan is all out of whack myself but I figured they didn't want to do that much remodeling. If the place was mine and I had enough money, I'd probably change almost all of it. Create one decent size bedroom, either a walk-in-closet or a small office, the necessities (fixing a kitchen back along with bathroom, w/d hookups, furnace, etc), and letting whatever is left be completely open.

ChrisGal, would it not be cheaper then to buy a place that already is the way you want it?

Depends on the neighborhood and the price of locations. It's rare to buy anything that started out just the way you want it...that is the need for remodeling.

Now I went with my theory....I'd still figure taking out the second bedroom and trying to make the main bedroom a little bigger. Big cities real estate tends to go up - so at resale it will probably be just as much as her tiny two bedrooms were.