Sunday, January 05, 2003

Living room plans

So, after probably 2 years of planning, I'm finally ready to buy furniture for my living room. I'm probably on my 5th overall redesign of what I wanted to do with the room. But I'm down to 3 final designs (with a possible variation on number 3) - but they're all very similar and just a reworking of the same furniture. The overall design is asian, with heavy emphasis on floor-level living (I wish I could rip the carpet up and put tatami down), so I'm making use of zaisu floor chairs, a low-standing table, etc. The room needs to be multi-purpose as well:

- lounging around during the evening, including watching TV or playing games
- serving as a dining area
- meeting area for up to 10 people (tough goal, it's a small room)
- work area for wireless laptops when co-workers are in town

Now, the general layout of the room is that the upper-left doorway leads into my office area (which is why it's screened off). There is no door between the office and the living room. The upper-right doorway has a swinging door (shown) and leads into the hallway leading to the rest of the apartment. In the bottom is a bay window, the only windows in the room (it's a row-house). The base of the windows is around 23" and the ceiling height in the room is a low 7'-5" (so by going floor-level seating, the room will seem larger). There is a single forced-air vent in the upper-left corner for heating, which needs to be kept clear if I want the room to stay warm during the winter. The only (2) electrical outlets are in the top wall (small circle marks location) and the lower-right corner of the room.

Current color scheme of the room is antique white walls, dark brown color trim (paint or stained wood), drop ceiling with white tiles and black metal. The floor is an ugly aqua green carpet. None of that can be changed since it's a rental.

Empty room from December 1997


March 1998


2001 room layout


Plan 1 - Bay window focal point, plan A

This is not a bad design, because it puts the table, papasan (my only "western" style chair, or as close as I'm going to get), and the TV in my preferred arrangement. It puts the shoji screen in the background of the room, so that you're not distracted by what lies behind the screen (my messy office). The table is also in a good location for breakfast due to the morning light coming in from the lower-left corner of the sketch. The problems with the design are the location and size of the papasan chair. It's slightly crowded in that area of the room as a result. This was the result of my last attempt 18-20 months ago to figure out a floor plan.

Plan 2 - Bay window focal point, plan B

Okay, plan B is to leave the TV in the bay window, but move the table to the lower-left corner. Looks like the papasan chair will end up in the lower-right corner. Downside is that you will not be able to see the TV from the papasan (unless I shift the TV to the left side of the bay). This layout does allow normal passage into the office through the doorway (the office has 2 doorways, there's a 2nd door into the hallway that I normally keep closed). I do tend to lean towards this floor plan as well.

Plan 3 - Upper-left focal point

Floor plan number 3 is a further development of the idea started in plan 2 of putting the papasan chair in the lower-right corner. Advantages are that the table area becomes the focal point of the room as you walk in, then shifts to the TV area up by the screened office doorway. It's possible to use the doorway into the office by folding up the shoji screen, and the papasan chair doesn't block the room flow.

Furniture
I've settled on the following pieces as core pieces for the room. You'll notice that these (3) pieces appear in all of the layout designs that I've done in the last 18-20 months. Hopefully some of the items go on sale come February.


This is probably "the" core piece that I definitely plan on getting. It's a 6-drawer dresser, with drawers that are perfectly sized to hold DVDs (internal dimensions of the drawers are 21.5-22.0" wide, 17.0" deep, and 7.0" high). The DVDs would lay spine-up, in (2) left-right rows in the drawer, providing about 43" of linear storage per drawer (258" total). My estimates are that you can store (36) DVDs in 21" of linear shelf space, which means that this dresser will hold 442 DVDs (I currently own a bit over 200). Source for this piece is Pier1 (part #1822498).


Storage trunk, useful for folks to sit on, or to stack floor pillows on (in), or to use as a serving area for the table when dining. It's the same color wood as the 6-drawer dresser. Part #1822600 from Pier1.


The papasan chair, which I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get. The things I'm not thrilled with is that the wood (rattan) is lighter shade (yellow-tint instead of brown) and the overall size of the chair is rather large (43" diameter). Source is Pier1 (part #816766). The main reason that I'm considering buying it is that I do like the chair, it mostly fits the decor, and I don't really have any other ideas of what to use instead for a more western style chair. There's also a foot stool (19" dia) that can be purchased (additional seating).

posted by Wuphon's at 7:22 PM