Layout and Design Ideas for Lilving Room as Quiet Reading Space?
I'd like to turn our living room into a quiet reading space for us and our 3 kids (ages 13, 5, 4) as we have no need for a "formal living room." We have a family room where we have our TV and we have a play room off the family room.
My husband built this bookcase and window benches in our OLD house (and I loved the space so much!) It doubled as an open play space.
This is the new space (I just stuck the chairs there to get them out of the way of the unpacking.)
And here's what I was thinking of doing with it, but I would love ideas! Totally open to something totally different than what I'm thinking *except* the gray chairs have to stay. And I'd like to keep that corner open for a Christmas tree, which probably sounds silly. My husband would say "Oh, we'll find a place for it." And I'm sure we would, but I'm a planner, so I want to leave a space for it ;) PS. The yellow walls and blinds/valance will go. And we'll be installing hardwood floors like we had in our old house. Ideas??
Comments (36)
mshutterbug
6 years agoRelated Discussions
awkward kitchen space need remodel layout ideas help!!!
Comments (13)Bellsmom, We will not be wanting a table/chairs in the kitchen. A peninsula with bar stools will serve nicely for eating/homework etc while my husband or I are cooking. No kids yet, but in the near future after the kitchen and rest of the house gets done I imagine there will be a few ;) Dining room is more a formal style dining room for large gatherings. Just my husband and I doing the cooking. Groceries and trash will go out the back door I want to put on the remaining living room wall after the 24ft kitchen area. We dont do anything more than an average family would probably. We make dinner every night, but arent extravagant chefs by any means. No computer or tvs needed in the kitchen. Small appliance storage out of sight is a must for my large stand mixer, toaster, blender etc. I would also like to do a large vent hood over the range and not an over the range microwave. I like having my microwave at a more useable height, counter height is what I'm thinking. I will try and add some pictures of the mantles etc for style reference later. On my way to the kitchen planner appt....See MoreHelp with layout in awkward living room space
Comments (16)So you want to use the living room for children's play, TV watching, piano playing and entertaining guests? That's a lot of function for a small room. I'm wondering, do you have a dining room and what do you use it for? If you have a dining room, but mostly eat in the kitchen, you could easily turn the dining room into a piano room and play room for the next couple of years, until the kids don't need a play room anymore. Then you could have a living room with furniture that can float away from the walls. You could have adequate seating for guests, without cramming toys and a piano in there. Your options would be greatly expanded. Maybe you don't have an eat-in kitchen and this idea simply wouldn't work in your house. But it just seems to me that you are trying to fit so many different functions into this one room, and if there's any place in the house you can move one or two functions, you would have a much easier time decorating this room. Don't lock yourself into what the name of the room is; look at each space in your house in terms of what functions it can best support....See MoreIdeas for a basement design / layout?
Comments (14)"...So at this point, changing the beams to steel and reducing jack posts isn't possible. Not sure if this can be done when we hire a contractor at a later point. Can this be done after the fact? I would still like to see some layout thoughts if we had to work with what we have?..." Well, this is confusing. Why can't the changes be made before construction begins? That's the time it can be both most economical, and be based to facilitate whatever layout in the basement which works best for you. To make the changes to the jack posts after construction will be very expensive. Without knowing more, it seems to me you're faced with two scenarios: 1) Make the needed changes before construction begins; or 2) Forget about any reasonable and economical changes to the basement for human habitation purposes once construction begins and is complete. When complete, with jack posts every 7'-8" the basement is uninhabitable, other than for storage....See MoreIdeas for using a space between rooms as more than a hallway.
Comments (5)start with 30 in deep and 6 ft long...a farmhouse style island. open shelf below or else 15 in deep cabinets or drawers..... on kitchen side. best is 15 in overhang with a few stools if you really think seating will be appreciated it appears youd have walk around clearance if you stick w about 30 in . thing to do is tape off these approx dimensions w blue tape on the floor and see what happens with ?walkability and is 6 feet about right for what youd desire for use. ???? taping off on floor is your action to evaluate since there is nothing there. ....See MoreUser
6 years agoUser
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
havingfun
6 years agoi do not understand the floor coffee table, you want people to sit up sometime, no? your children are still more comfortable on the floor than on chairs i think. these pillows and their combinations, provide for a variety of sit, lay, lounge positions.
waterproof and blow up, acts as seat or foot stool, easier to store otherwise.
although many of these are made of folded cardboard, they are incredibly strong. 200+ pound hubby sits on, legally! flip the lids and you have tables or with weight of games, mags, throws and pillows, they can be used as walls to sit against. Let the adults have the 2 chairs comfortable to them. till older let the kids sit in their favorite positions.
User
6 years ago
katinparadise
6 years agohavingfun
6 years agohavingfun
6 years ago
PROVRA Interiors, LLC
6 years agoIt looks like that room would be a great place to build a window seat. Here are some suggestions from some of our designs. You could get book shelves, have your two chairs, with some ottomans, and some poufs for the kids.
mshutterbug
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agoUser
6 years ago
Susan Davis
6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agoUser
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoI created a visual of the reading room and this is the layout I came up with since katinparadise suggested the shelves to be behind the pantry.
mshutterbug
6 years agoAwesome - thanks!!
I just can't decide how big to make the bookcase. The wall is over 14 feet long. Filling the wall might be a bit excessive lol. If I do it to just fit my baskets it works out to about 7.5 feet long. (See pic) But do I center it? If not, which side to align it?
katinparadise
6 years agoUser
6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agoUser
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agoUser
6 years agoUser
6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agoThanks @ katinparadise! Good idea! We’ve been busy planning kitchen remodel and kids’ rooms, so I’ve put the living room plans off. And I may be homeschooling my two youngest next year so I’m toying with the idea of making the room a reading/homeschool room. It wouldn’t be a forever thing, maybe just a couple years, so I don’t want a full-on schoolroom. I’d like to keep it flexible.
I had this idea to do a full-wall bookcase. Would that be crazy? Then maybe on the pantry wall/corner I could put a book rack for the books we are currently reading (like what they have at preschool...it seems to be much more appealing and more likely to be cleaned up than the large row of books.) Main bookcase would’ve storage and rack would be reading corner.
Anyway I am clearly nowhere near making up my mind lol. Feel free to give me any thoughts!
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6 years agomshutterbug
6 years agokatinparadise
6 years agomshutterbug
5 years agoWas just thinking about this thread because I'm back to brainstorming about this room (even though I'm still not quite ready to really tackle it)! I have been focused on other parts of our remodel, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do with this room lol! At the moment it's just kind of a holding space for some boxes and random things as we finish our kitchen remodel. Now and then I go in and move the chairs around and try to visualize what I want to do with the space. And my 2 youngest drag dining chairs in there and build forts. Otherwise it basically has no identity. But at least it looks slightly less hideous :D
mshutterbug
4 years ago
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