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Living room/dining room layout design??

7 years ago

Hello,

I am building a house and the most dificult part for me is to designe the living/dining room. I am searching for solutions/pictures for months till now and nothing... so if you can help me with some solutions it will be great.

The room has 7/6 m (287 inches/236 inches), it will have to include a big "L" shape couch, a dinning table for 8-12 people, a TV and a fireplace. The fireplace can be placed only in the areas colored with green.

The area between the terrace door and the house entrance hall can be frequently passed when guests are visiting.

There is a great view from the 3 big windows of the room.

I will be verry happy if you can suggest some placement options for the furniture.

Thanks a lot!

Featured Answer

Annie Deighnaugh

7 years ago

Do you need the fireplace? It would be a great help as a room divider, but in the locations you have it, it really can't function that way. I'm assuming this would be a gas fireplace. Can it be very modern? Or does it have to be more of a traditional fireplace? Some modern fireplaces can be small and can be placed almost anywhere, which may work for you.

Part of the issue is the space, once you remove the traffic area, is really a square which then needs to be divided in 2 for the 2 functions. That leaves you only about 9' or 3 meters for each function which is pretty narrow. Plus you need traffic area to get from one function to the other.

Candice Olson has done some interesting dining/LR combos. Perhaps one of them will inspire you. Given the size of your area, look at the rooms where she's done a built-in banquette for one side of the dining area as a way to save space.

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Comments (6)

ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
7 years ago
This is somewhat off-topic, but what disturbs me about your room is that you seem to have windows on only one side. Having light coming from several different directions gives a much friendlier and more multidimensional feel, and this room will not feel so much like a square box. Granted, you have a lot of light coming from one side, but even having two smaller windows on another side will make this room seem so much more livable and probably even larger.
Laura Balan thanked ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
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Laura Balan
Original Author
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Hello Annie Deighnaugh

I would like a fireplace on wood but it's not necessarily, I know that after I remuve the traffic area I have a square and it's hard to divide that. The table from the dining room will be used rare, just on special ocasions, in the kitchen we will have also a 6-person table. because of the busy schedule we rarely eat at home and in warm season we try to stay outside as much as possible.

I attached 2 variants that at this moment I can see in that room but I don't know if there are some other possibilities that are much more useful. I also attached one picture of the room but it's an old picture from when the house was in construction and some other that I saved in time like models that I think it will work in that area, although I don't have a clear vision.

Please let me know what do you think about the variants.

Thank you!
Laura Balan
Original Author
7 years ago
Hello ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9,

Having an aditional window is not a strange idea to me, we made the room with an large windou (1,6meters high and 4 meters long) on the other wall of the room, but our neighbor decided to make a big constructions with a lot of windows right in front of it (5 meters away) so to have privacy we decided to construct a full wall in the place of the window and make bigger windows on the wall that is facing the terace and the yard.
Annie Deighnaugh
7 years ago
Given the limited use of the dining table and how much space it occupies, I would suggest you look into an expandable table that can be folded up like a sofa table or console for most of the time, then opened up to be used for large dinners. That way your room will be able to function well on a daily basis while accommodating the crowd when necessary. [See for example..[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/5-instant-dining-tables-stsetivw-vs~928815)
Annette Holbrook(z7a)
7 years ago
You could do a corner fireplace. Put the tv above it or on that back wall.

Also you could add clerestory Windows on that back wall, get the light but not the view.

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