Question: We just moved into a hillside home and need direction on turning this large space with lots of windows, sliders and entries into a relaxing media/guest room. The house is like a tree house. From this room, you feel as if you are hanging over nature. At one side are 36-inch-tall built-ins with storage space below (behind cabinet doors). At the center of one wall is a wood stove surrounded by Mexican pavers. The stove vents out the back wall. The sliders open to a large, wrap-around deck with a views of natural surroundings, including oak and laurel. The room has recessed lighting and wall-to-wall carpeting.

Janet Nusbaum
Sonoma, CA

Answer: A media room that doubles as a guest room is a wonderful way to use a large room like this one. However, your current floor plan presents a challenge: The room's flow is badly broken up by the closet and feels like two rooms. And, with so many windows and doors, it's difficult to find a good place to put the sofa and television.

Structural improvement

It's not often that I suggest removing elements in a home, but this large room is a perfect candidate for it. The built-in cabinet takes up the best wall, which otherwise would be a perfect place to put a sofa so you can enjoy the view. I encourage you to remove both the closet and the built-in cabinet. As you see in the new floor plan, I've replaced the lost closet with an even larger one. Unfortunately, removing the closet and built-in may require replacing the carpet, but I think that's a small price to pay for the benefits you'll gain by opening up the room.

BEFORE

AFTER

BETTER USE OF SPACE: An awkward closet that jutted out into this room wasa removed to open up the space, and built-in cabinets were taken out to make way for a large couch that pulls out into a bed.

Let's place the sofa against the long interior wall so you can now face the windows and wood stove. The sofa shown is 9 feet long and opens into a large bed for guests. At the sides are matched end tables with drawers to double as night tables. Each has a lamp on it.

In front of the sofa is a 6-foot-long coffee table. I'd make it an upholstered, ottoman-style table so you're comfortable putting your feet up when watching TV. With a lift-up top, you can store blankets and pillows in it.

In the corner, facing the sofa, is a large, comfortable club chair; perhaps it's even a wall-hugging recliner. A floor lamp and end table complete this cozy corner.

New closet

On the other side of the room is another complete seating area for socializing and entertaining. It contains the newly created closet that runs the entire length of that wall segment. Sliding flat-panel or shutter-style doors give you easy access to the closet without taking up valuable floor space for swinging doors.

In front of the closet wall is a pair of comfortable club chairs with a coffee table. Opposite the chairs is a 6-foot-long bench for additional seating when you're entertaining guests.

So where's the TV? This is a media room, after all!

The wood stove is freestanding and vents out the back wall, so I've put a 48-inch flat-screen TV on the wall above it. This gives you the opportunity to see the fire, enjoy the view and watch TV simultaneously. Now it's a perfect media room.

On either side of the wood stove's tiled flooring are a pair of cabinets that hold media components, speakers, CDs and DVDs.

Choosing colors

Your walls are blue and the carpet is a beige berber. I've designed this room with contemporary furniture, using natural materials to enhance the feeling of the outdoors. I suggest that the long sofa be a toasty brown leather. Because it's so large, I recommend that the style be very simple, with low, straight arms and loose back cushions.

The fabric for the recliner can be beige tweed with flecks of brown to complement the sofa. Next to it is an oval end table, perhaps a dark brown wood, and over your right shoulder is a floor lamp to illuminate your book. The lamp can be antique bronze metal to keep the natural color theme going.

On the other side of the room are the two club chairs. These can be leather, similar to the sofa, or choose a warm-color fabric for a softer texture.

The coffee table on this side of room could be glass to maintain the open feeling of the room, perhaps with a dark wood frame. And the bench can be upholstered in a fabric, perhaps picking up the blue from the walls, with legs in a dark wood. Add floor lamps on each side of these chairs as well.

Finally, in the far corners of the room are large plants to make a gracious visual transition from the outdoors in.

 

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