apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions. For Andree, I was thinking about a wide table to go behind the sofa, but I'm not sure where the sofa would go, if I put the TV under the counter next to the bookcases. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!
Nicki

One tip: don't make the TV the center of attention. Organize everything else first (sofas, etc.), THEN fit in the TV.

Can you tell us what the dimensions of the room are, and location of doors/windows? I can tell a bit from the pics - but maybe not as much as would ultimately be helpful.

It'd be great if you could actually even sketch out a basic floor plan of the room (even a cameraphone picture of doodle on a napkin would be fine!)

Hi -

Here are the measurements of my room

21 ft. 1 inch long by 15 ft. 3 inches wide

and the kitchen area takes up:

6 ft. long by 11 ft. wide

I will take a picture of a floor plan drawing and put it up.

Thanks!
nicki

At 21 feet long, you should have enough room for three zones: kitchen, dining, living. Desk space is likely to end up in a corner or as a transition between dining and seating space.

Speaking as someone who reluctantly chose an apartment with an open kitchen -- make planning a landing strip a higher priority than a dining table, or everything you own will end up on that kitchen counter. I'm starting to think topiary, just to form a barrier so things CANNOT land on the corners. (And put a centerpiece on the dining table, as it'll be an attractor of stuff.)

Multiuse items can help. Make a choice, eat at the counter always, or put that area to other use. My idea: Put in bookshelves in that area between the supports for the breakfast bar. Put the TV in that area too.

That counter is going to stick out anyway, like mine does, and it then becomes an extension of the bookshelves. That's what I did, put in bookshelves underneath.

Next, do you really need all that seating for TV/entertaining? Yes? No? I use extremes as examples, and common sense. If you had to seat 20 people once every 5 years, would you always have seating for 20? Probably not. So, have seating for the number of people you have 80-90% of the time.

Ditto for dining. And do you USE the dining table? Would you? You don't need a dining table for 8 if there's you and one other person. If you only use the dining table once a day, or not even that, would space be better alloted to a desk? A table that can double as a desk, perhaps a gateleg style, that can be expanded as needed?

A wide sofa table to put behind the sofa where you could also eat, work on a laptop, or use as your landing strip?

Or a nice coffee table, with a stack of pillows stored, and when you have company, you put down the pillows and people gather around the coffee table to dine and relax?

Bonus: After dinner when everyone is tired, they can just fall backwards and put their heads on their individual pillows and go to sleep.

S h e ' s B a a a a c c c k k k ! ! !

Nicki: Take a look at this picture for the idea I was thinking of for your great space:

http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/FamilyFriendly_12042001.xml

Yeah, yeah, I know it's not the same furniture or room, it's just the idea of the sofa or loveseat in the center with the dining table right behind.

Having the dining table in that position allows you to use the dining table AS a dining table. AS a desk. AS extra TV seating (via chairs around the dining table). AS a place to put reading lamps over your shoulder on the sofa.

Everyone always seems to push all their furniture against the walls. And you might have to do that with a small room. But take it to the other extreme. If you had a gymnasium sized living/dining area, you'd need to provide guests with bullhorns to communicate across that open space, right?

If you have the sofa facing the kitchen, and that undercounter area is bookshelves and maybe even a small stereo (a nice looking boombox thing is just enough for mood music without have to call in earthquake specialists to be sure you aren't rocking your home off it's foundation with your sub-woofers).

You can then read, watch TV, listen to music or cordially chat with the person/people in the kitchen. A lot of times people end up IN the kitchen anyway. Make them sit down while you prepare delicious foods and stop hovering over your shoulder.

While you're over at BHG, there IS a room arranger (conveniently called "Arrange A Room") in the Tools and Guides section (look in the upper left of that hideous green where it says "more tools and guides".

Rather than pushing stuff around all day and hurting your back, just take some measurements and arrange your furnishings online. You can resize each furnishing item to reflect the actual dimensions of your OWN furniture.

This is very handy so you don't have to provide ladder or pole vaults to get over the sofa because it's cut off your main pathway to the bathroom. You can also try different pieces of your own furniture, not putting them all in.

Keep those measurements handy too. So if you are considering a new anything, you can pop it into the program, and see if it fits or not.

Because (everyone body say it with me) thinking it will fit and knowing it will fit are two different things.

Jay. Is me being back a good thing or bad thing? I was off on another site, working on "me" and failing miserably. I also fell in love (okay, limerance) many times and I'm crest fallen. Heart broken. And all those other cliches.

Here, nobody calls it "stalking" if I spend hours trying to find a perfect lamp, area rug, chair. It's not creepy to recolor someone's home. It's a good thing to spend hours looking for things for people.

So I have to use my creativity and curiousity and tenacity stalking the elusive bathroom cabinet on an interior design site.

Er, at least that's what the restraining order said. ;-)

I have a similar room.

I'd have a parsons desk behind the sofa for your work area. Preferably one with a hidden drawer, so if you have a laptop, you can tuck it away when you're not working.

I use the back of my sofa as the divider between the living and dining parts of the room.
Since you can view the television from the sofa, being able to do the same from the desk makes sense. Doesn't everybody like to work while watching Evil Dead? :D