Washington - Iantha Carley and her husband raised their two kids, now grown, in a small house.
This meant the living room was also the theatre, games room, library and meeting space.
“We had to decide whether to watch the same show or read a book,” Carley says.
The interior designer finds that her clients have a similar situation; often, there is no basement to watch movies in, no room to relegate kids’ toys to.
The living room – once decorated with pretty accessories and reserved as a space for entertaining – is finding itself as a place for living, with all the demands that come with it: wall space for a flat-screen TV, speakers for Friday-night movies, a surface for board games, storage for remote controls, and seating for guests. It needs to be stylish enough to host dressy cocktail evening hors d’oeuvres and still be comfy enough for Sunday afternoon naps.
As interior designer Patrick Baglino Jr explains, “When the room is organised and looks good, and is arranged in a way that is conducive to conversation and living, it’s a total picture: style, form, function.”
You might think that means hide the TV, but Carley and Baglino agree it’s no longer passé to have the telly in plain sight.
What’s more important is to make the room ready to pivot to whichever activity is happening next, whether that’s book club in the morning or a video-game session after school.
Think how the room flows, whether people can walk through it without bumping into furniture. Use durable fabrics to stand up to spills. Get those cords organised and out of sight. And make sure there’s adequate, dimmable recessed lighting.
Whether it’s called a living, family, or multipurpose room, “it’s intended to be a place for a family to hang out,” Carley says. “Make it a place everyone wants to enjoy.”
DVDs, DVRs, streaming-media consoles, game consoles, cords – they all come together to make an unsightly mess, Carley says. A media cabinet with slatted doors, or one with a mixture of open and closed shelves, will conceal it all without inhibiting remote signals. Bonus: “If the equipment is behind closed doors, there’s less dusting.”
A wireless speaker is compact enough to tuck away on a bookshelf and move around as needed.
The days of hiding your TV are over. “You have a TV. Lots of people have TVs. Why pretend you don’t watch?” Carley asks. She likes media storage units that conceal cables yet keep the TV and related equipment accessible. The fibreboard back can be painted or wallpapered to blend in with the decor – or stand out against it.
Search for “cord” on Real Simple’s website and 16 clever solutions pop up, including using a paper towel tube, a clothes pin and a trouser sock.
Baglino, though, is fond of the binder-clip method, in which you clip the cords and hook the clip on to screws on the back of furniture. Not up for DIY? Try self-adhesive cord clips.
He has used a TV easel to decorate homes. His clients like it because it frees up the space over the fireplace for paintings – and whimsically elevates the TV itself to the status of art.
Cord clutter is the pet peeve of designers and homeowners everywhere.
“I can’t stand tangled-up cords behind tables and things all over a living or family room,” he says.
When choosing a media cabinet, Baglino suggests finding one with “presence”.
Skip the standard three-tiered systems that are purely functional; you want a cabinet that can stand on its own as an attractive piece of furniture.
Baglino and Carley recommend putting DVD collections behind closed doors or going with services such as Netflix and iTunes. To streamline the collection you have, try tossing the cases and putting the discs in binder sleeves.
Stray remote controls cramp a family room’s style. Keep them in a pretty box out of sight – make sure you measure your remote first. (Some monster universal remotes might be hard to conceal.)
Instead of filling a large room with a sectional, Carley suggests using a sofa and flanking it on one side with two “loungey” upholstered chairs, on the other with two accent chairs, and then filling out the arrangement with ottomans. An oversize scale sofa with generous pillows – can help rearrange the room for different focuses: games night, movie night or hot cocoa in front of a fire.
“An ottoman is a classic for a reason – because it works,” Baglino says.
It can serve as extra seating for guests, as a table (with tray) for drinks and, yes, as somewhere to put your feet up. A storage ottoman can house blankets and board games. An upholstered ottoman is made more versatile with a tray. Use it to organise remotes or magazines, or as a place to put a candle or mug.
The ideal family room “has lots of storage, and it can hold things like electronics, components and TVs, but in a beautiful, thoughtful way”, Baglino says.
Baskets and bins with grown-up patterns are ideal for camouflaging toys.
Lindsey Roberts, Washington Post