Question: Two previous Design Dilemmas have helped me and my wife come a little bit closer to solving our perplexing dilemma regarding our abnormally long and narrow flat.

We're stumped by how to use the space in our living room to create a more comfortable and inviting room. The office or parlor must serve many functions: house our treadmill, my music keyboards and desk, and serve as a guest room with a fold-out couch or something. The pocket doors between the living room and parlor allow privacy for guests.

The furniture worked well in our old place, but this is our first home and we want to fill it with more stylish and functional furniture.

Bill Bowers,
San Francisco

Answer: It's always a challenge to make a small room serve many functions, but when the right look is achieved it's especially satisfying.

Your narrow rooms offer a good opportunity to use furniture that's smaller in scale but no less functional for its size

Let's start with the living room. Your book storage and display space need to be attractive and practical. I suggest you have a pair of bookcases built, one on each side of the fireplace. Incorporate recessed lighting to give your fireplace wall a sense of grace as well as to illuminate accessories and art. Instead of a sofa and two large chairs, I recommend a pair of identical small sofas. Place them perpendicular to the fireplace, facing each other. Between them goes a small coffee table. Choose one that has a shelf below the surface for additional storage space for magazines and coffee table books. Place behind each of the sofas thin console (or "sofa") tables. They provide a place for tall lamps that illuminate the room and help define the living space. Under this furniture grouping you could put an area rug that visually defines the space. Opposite the fireplace wall could be a console cabinet, and above it, on the wall, a flat-screen TV. The cabinet stores all your stereo equipment along with CDs, DVDs, tapes, etc. Place occasional chairs on either side of this console cabinet. These can be pulled into the main seating area when you have more guests. On the bay window end of the room, I'd use sheer drapes, from the top of windows to the floor, for a look of refinement. Put a pair of tall, thin palm trees in simple yet elegant pots in this area. Below the plants, "up lights" placed on the floor would send beautiful shadows onto the walls and ceiling and create visual interest in that part of the room.

The living room now has a simple, elegant and balanced feeling. The symmetry created by this placement of furniture has a calming effect and takes your mind off the fact that the room is small and narrow. The parlor, on the other hand, needs to fulfill several functions simultaneously, so we have to be more flexible in its arrangement.

This room is sometimes an office and sometimes a guest bedroom, so let's use a small sofa that converts to a bed. Leather would be a good choice because it's practical, wears well and seems more appropriate for an office. On one end of the sofa should be a small table for a lamp.

Because you need to be seated for both the desk and keyboard, I've placed the keyboard against the wall and the desk in front of it. The chair in between is a small swivel chair that serves both stations. A small bookcase nearby provides easy access to books and music scores.

There is nothing intrinsically decorative about a treadmill, even in a workout room. So the challenge is how to keep it from being visually intrusive when you have guests. I've placed the treadmill conveniently so you don't have an excuse to not use it regularly, but I've shielded it with a decorative screen. Now the view into this room from the living room is attractive, yet there's still easy access to the machine.

Screens are a wonderful way to change the appearance of a room and simultaneously hide a multitude of decorating sins. With endless varieties, there's one for every decorating style, taste and budget. They can be painted, wallpapered, or stapled or glued with fabric. Some are made of tooled leather, shirred fabric or metal. I've even seen twigs tied together inside a screen frame.

A foldable screen can be any number of panels, but you need at least two for stability. In this case I've shown three panels. Screens are easy enough to make if you can handle a screwdriver. Hollow core doors are a terrific way to start; they come in many sizes and the edges are already finished. Two doors hinged to each other make a screen. Three doors and you're really into it -- just make sure that the scale suits the space.

All in all, this furniture layout covers a variety of needs, yet is attractive, functional and suitable for a small, narrow house.

 

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