Posted on: May 7, 2007

Design Rules for a Great ‘Great’ Room

As more homes opt to combine the living room, dining room and kitchen into one area, turning three distinct areas into one cohesive gem becomes the challenge: Part one of a two-part series

By Christina Owens
CTW Features

In a real estate market full of 20-room mansions, the idea of highlighting one multi-purpose room might sound counterintuitive. Many homeowners, however, are breaking down their figurative (or in some cases literal) kitchen, dining and living room walls in favor of one room.

“This doesn’t just apply to people with a large house and a big great room,” says Libby Langdon, an interior designer and design expert with HGTV’s “Small Space Big Style.”

One of the origins of the one room concept was the emergence of lofts as viable living space in the 1980s, says Jennifer Gustafson, president of Haven Designs, Mill Valley, Calif.

“The reason it keeps coming up over and over again, is that people like to nest and cluster,” she says. “Our society is much more casual than it was a few years ago.”

Whether the creation of a multi-purpose room is out of necessity or a longing for the loft-style of the 80s, design should reflect individuality.

“Have fun,” Langdon says. “We’re all living in small spaces. We’ve got have a sense of humor.”

Tips on How to Make Your Furniture Work:

Lighting

Whether it’s natural light or other, the amount of light that’s filtered

through a large multipurpose room can make it appear larger and can also delineate the space. Four or five lamps in a living area are not too many, says Langdon. “I would encourage people to make sure you’re lighting all four corners of the room,” she says. “If it’s not lit, you can’t see it, and it’s as though it’s not even there.”

The biggest mistake people make with their space, however, is stopping at the window, says Brian Coleman, author of “Extraordinary Interiors” (Gibbs Smith, 2005). “Nice curtains can warm the space,” he says. “They absorb sound and lend warmth and coziness to their space. Don’t forget the windows.”

Color

In a multi-use space, cohesiveness of color can highlight the intention of the homeowner to create one collective space. “You want to have something that’s cohesive throughout the whole room,” Coleman says.

This cohesive color palette even extends to the materials used, says Gustafson. “People also treat wood as just wood,” she says. “It’s a color. The materials you chose should really complement each other.”

Color used in the right way, however, can help to designate the living area from the dining area in a large room. “You can break up a singular space with wall color,” Langdon says. “One end of the room is the living area and one end of the room is a dining area. Whatever end of the room it is, just paint it an accent color. Don’t be afraid to be bold.”

Height/Size

Drawing the eye upward is the key to making one large, multi-purpose room appear even bigger, says Langdon.

“You’re visually playing a trick on yourself,” she says. “Anytime you can go vertical it’s going to make a big difference.”

Langdon recommends using open shelving between spaces to allow light to pass through but to differentiate between the areas of the room.

She also recommends using hanging shelves above cabinets “if your existing cabinets don’t go all the way up to the ceiling.”

Optimizing vertical space is also an opportunity to be creative and express individuality.

“One of the nice things with one room is that you can use things of different scales,” Coleman says. “If you have tall ceilings you can have one large chandelier.”

Experimentation with height and size also extends to furniture, but like color, cohesiveness of size unites the three spaces.

“You need to try to make it look like one big space,” Gustafson says.

“You don’t want to have an itsy-bitsy object next to a gargantuan object. The back heights of chairs should be pretty close.”

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