Jeff "King of the Castle"
The lounge or the living room can feel like one of the home’s core ‘functional’ rooms, alongside the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom. That can prevent this room from being one that you think about creatively – feeling more obligatory as a result of this.
However, of these core rooms, the lounge is the one that offers you the greatest amount of versatility. Embracing this can leave you with a room that feels unique to you and your home and one that you love spending time in as a result.
A Social Space
Just as some people might design their garden with the expectation of future social occasions in mind, you might be tempted to do the same thing with your lounge. If you have guests over regularly, it is easy to see why you might do this, but the specifics can get more difficult to imagine. As well as plenty of areas for seating, you might think of counter space for people to rest their drinks or food, as well as an open setting that can encourage discussion and roaming.
Thinking about what you want to get out of a lounge can help you design it with your comfort and entertainment needs at the forefront of the design.
The Entertainment Lounge
You should design the lounge more for yourself and the people who live in your home. You could make it a quieter and more thoughtful space, such as using it to create a reading space with armchairs next to a fireplace. However, you might enjoy unwinding with various entertainment systems involving a TV – multiple comfortable chairs pointing towards a large monitor that can allow you access to streaming networks and gaming options.
That might be different from what you want to dominate the room, though, and it does not have to comprise whole of it. This might be especially relevant if you prefer to play games on your phone, such as playing machine a sous at online casinos. In this situation, you might want to design a versatile entertainment lounge – allowing people to gather around the TV but sit on a chair by a window with a book or their phone.
Where is it?
Just as the room itself seems obligatory, its location can also feel obvious and mandatory once you look at the floor plan. If you have rooms to spare, you might find a more optimal location for an area designed to help you relax (or even space to afford you a second lounge, giving rise to both entertainment and socially focused options in your home).
For example, if you have a loft available, consider converting this space to be usable as a lounge. The result could be that it’s more relaxing due to its distance from the front door and potentially calming due to its access to more scenic vistas than was previously possible.
