Making it a Great Room
Down here in the Southeastern U.S., we're having an early splash of spring. It was 79 degrees yesterday, and some of my jonquils have begun to bloom! So as all this warm weather unfolded around me, there was only one thing to do--rearrange my great room.
The great room is the only room, besides my kitchen, where we spend a lot of time together as a family. But there has always been something wrong with it. It looks like any other great room in any other home, right down to the functional furniture--a couch, coffee table, two comfortable lounging chairs, an armoire holding a television set and stereo, and some tables. Although the room was decorated warmly, there was something awkward about it.
The Dilemma:
We shoved all the furniture to one side and began rearranging. That's when I was able to pinpoint the problem: although the room is a perfect rectangle, with a bank of windows centered on the back wall, the front wall contains a middle section and doors on each side of it. Sounds symmetrical right? Nope. On one side of that middle section we have a single doorway, on the other, a double doorway to accommodate french doors. Therefore, the section of wall where the armoire needs to go is not centered. Yet the windows across from it, on the back wall, are centered.
So...where do we put the couch? If you put it centered in front of the windows, you're not quite across from the television set. If you center it in front of the television set, it's way to the right side, in front of the windows. It might not have bothered some people, but it was driving me NUTS.
The Solution:
Since we often have friends over to watch movies, we decided it was best to place the couch directly across from the television for easy viewing. That left us with just one problem: the room looked a bit like everything was leaning to the right. So I decided to balance things out by placing a table in the left corner of the room. The table serves two additional purposes, other than balancing out the weight of the furniture: it serves as a desk most of the time, and when we're entertaining, it can be pulled out and used for dining or serving. The table is actually an old gardening bench salvaged from an antique store. It has lived previous lives as my office desk and as my kitchen table.
So I hope you can see from the photos that our balance problem in the room has been solved. It was a long day's work, but it was worth it. We created a space that is both comfortable and pleasing to our eyes. And that makes all that work totally worth it.
Comments
It looks really nice!
I've got a room that I can't arrange for anything. It's a nice big room, but it only has two walls to it, one of which has two windows and the front door. Another side is completely open to the eating nook and the other side functions as the hallway from the front door and has double doors and the actually hallway. It's a pain to try to arrange. I don't have it the way I like it yet--and I've lived here for eight years!
Posted by: MusicalMom | March 15, 2006 02:14 PM
Nice place you have here. Love the wall color, and your suggestions. Our livingroom has similar issues. Your blog skins are good as well.
Posted by: Blage | March 22, 2006 12:22 PM