Time To Call For Room Service

May 4 2008 Justin And Colin

NO SOFA SEATING

Hey - a living room without a sofa... controversial. The owners had a TV snug elsewhere so this room was simply for chilling with friends and family. The lack of goggle box let us create a conversation-promoting layout of four chairs facing each other. A configuration like this works well in hotel foyers and just as well at home... The Academy chair from Oka will give you a similar feel at £690 from www.okadirect.com as will the Lillberg from IKEA for just £75 each (www.ikea.com)

ADDED FEATURES

Anything you can do to stop rooms from being boring boxes is great news. We added ornate plasterwork to walls with a chair rail and some box frames. This adds grandeur even where space is limited. Either paint in a lighter colour or tone them into your base colour. For fab plaster finishes check out Wm Boyle in Pollokshields, Glasgow, or buy online (www.wmboyle.co.uk). Wall colour is Dulux 90YY 72/225 (www.dulux.co.uk)

FOLLOW THE LINES

The easy way to design a room is to be repetitive. Here, the framed chair style led us to choose fabrics and lampshades with a banded outline and this in turn led us to choose a striped fabric for the blind. The important thing is to have a vision of how you want your room to look - so think twice, buy once and save on disappointment... and cash.

ALLERGY FREE

Our owners had real problems with allergies so we went for an allergy-free approach, swapping the dust holding carpet for a clean hardwood floor and using low-knap fabrics on the soft furnishings. For more on how to combat allergies at home, visit www.allergymatters.com

LET IN THE LIGHT

The hallway next to this room was bathed in natural daylight thanks to a frosted glass front door, so we added a couple of glass doors to let the light filter through. Glazed doors open up the hallway too, so it's double bubble... B&Q have similar glazed doors starting at around £54 (www.diy.com).

FEELING OF SPACE

In tight zones, it's important to maximise the feeling of space to stop everything feeling cramped and uncomfortable. Here, we kept furnishings to the bare minimum, used chairs and tables with legs to allow light to pass under them and selected a high gloss finish floor to bounce light around even more.