All Work and Play for a 'Great' Room

Homeowners living with one room that encompasses the living, dining and kitchen areas might be low on space, but plenty of room for business and entertaining: Part two of a two-part series

By Christina Owens
CTW Features

Image courtesy Viking

For people with smaller spaces, a living room can serve as an additional dining room, and the dining room can become an office.

"Float a sofa out into the middle of the room so it's perpendicular to the wall and then you can back your desk up against it," says Libby Langdon, an interior designer and design expert with HGTV's "Small Space Big Style." "You're not compromising the aesthetic or the living space. You're still able to have a console table with a lamp on it. It I just doubles as your desk."

For those who's living rooms double as an multimedia space as well as an entertaining space, Jennifer Gustafson, president of Haven Designs, Mill Valley, Calif., recommends finding a place to hide the TV on a bookshelf so that it's integrated with the books.

"It's more about creating a focal point that's interesting and pretty," she says. You have to think about where you want your eye to go."

While airing your dirty laundry is a proverbial "no-no," for interior designers, airing your dirty dishes is worse. Using a screen or cabinets with glass on both sides to create a slight barrier to your kitchen is helpful, Gustafson says.

"Your eyes are going to go to the most complex thing," she says. "If you create a visual interest that diverts attention, your eye's going to find that automatically and focus on it."

Homeowners with a single living space comprised of kitchen, dining and living rooms might find it easier to leave their work behind in favor of party time - even with limited space.

"When you have a singular space, you have the opportunity to entertain," Langdon says. "You just have to make sure it's all well thought out in advance." She recommends using an entryway table that can double as a buffet.

"It's just a little place to drop your keys, but when you're entertaining you can put it on casters and it can be a bar, or you can move it out into the living room and it can be a table," she says.

In a small space, casters can be a host or hostess' best friend. Langdon recommends putting them on everything from desks to bookshelves.

"Put casters on the legs of your desk," she says. "Then, when you want to entertain sometime, you can pull it in front of a sofa."

Movable bookshelves can be used as office storage space, as a barrier between the dining and living space or as a place to set hors d'oeuvres.

"You've got to really start thinking about how everything can work," Langdon says. "In a small space you're not allowed to have lazy furniture. It's all got to be working."

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