The original bedroom in our new small family apartment will have to acquire a new role: the living room and dining room.
You see, our apartment was built in the sixties, for a young couple or perhaps an older couple. It had a spacious bedroom, kitchen, a lovely dining room with an attached, small balcony and a nice living room with dual aspect. For it to be suitable for a family of 5 we have to re-purpose and remodel the space.
See the layout of our small family apartment
The original bedroom, right off the corridor is nice sized room. (Pretty much a blank canvas, as you can see)
The 3.5 m x 2.4 m (11.5 ft x 8 ft) space is actually much the same as our the living room in our old Victorian home in Oxford. It makes for a really cosy, homely living room, as expereince has shown.
Considerations for a living room in a small family apartment:
1, Invest in multi-functional furniture
One of the best pieces of furniture we have own over the past couple of years is our IKEA Friheten sofa. It is compact, has storage and doubles up as a spare double bed.
2, Use clever storage to avoid a cluttered feeling
3, Paint walls a light colour to create a feeling of space
4, Create a focal point …other than the TV
Thinks as a Multi-functional Space
Our Living room- dining room- kitchen functions
Each family is different. For us it is important that we spend quality time together and a lot of this is in the living- and dining room and kitchen in our home:
- Eat breakfast and dinner together at the dining table.
- Movie nights on the sofa all snuggled up, needs a sofa to fit 5.
- Xbox Kinect challenges, this needs a relatively big living room
- Homework at the dinner table while I prepare meals
- We love hosting dinner parties and often end up sitting at our large extendable dining table the whole evening, instead of moving to the living room. Having a space that can morph into a dining hall is awesome!
Make your own list:
How do you use your living room?
pin/share/save for later
Leave a Reply