Modern Furniture

Get to know the building thoroughly before you moke any major design decisions. Ask yourself these questions:

• which direction does it face?
• which rooms (ace the road/overlook the garden/have other views?
• which rooms get most light at which times of day?
• Which rooms are the quietest?
• Which rooms have the most wall and floor space?
• Which rooms have the highest ceilings?
• Do any rooms lead into one another?
• Are there any wasted comers or unusable spaces?
• Are there any doors that open awkwardly?
• Are there any narrow corridors causing obstructions?
• Are there any doorways or corners that make furniture access unnecessarily difficult?
• Which walls are structurally supporting and which are partitions?

How clearly you can see the outline of your space depends partly on whether the house is new to you or all too familiar. Have you just moved in, full of plans, knowing the space is limited but inspired by good intentions to make the most of it? If so, then you are seeing It with fresh eyes and clear sight, unjaded by experience. However, you do not know it well enough to envisage how you will live in it, how the space works, where the light falls, how that awkward door opens the wrong way and blocks the corridor… Give yourself time to get used to your new home, to get a feel for how you will live In it. Do not rush straight In with your most ambitious and imaginative plans.

Or is it somewhere you have lived for some time and grown too big for? Has it filled up until you cannot see the edges and have no space to turn round? If so, you will know all the problems and be aware of which rooms are most comfortable at which time of day. But you are probably bogged down with clutter and frustration, and are unable to see it in a new light. Take a step back and envisage it without its over-abundant contents.

The convention of living downstairs and sleeping above no longer makes sense when you consider that It is the upper rooms that tend to get the most daylight and that these are wasted by being used solely at night. Take a look at many new house designs and you will find that they are turning this style of living upside down, with bedrooms downstairs and living space on the upper floors to take full advantage of the light, it could be worth rethinking your layout to turn the bedrooms into daytime living space.

Begin by assessing your existing bedroom. What needs are being met, and what is lacking? What do you like or dislike? Do you want more morning light? More storage space? Have your space needs changed? Have the kids moved out so you have extra space? Or have you added to your family, creating new space needs?

If you’re starting from scratch your options are wide open; you have the luxury of choosing the size and location, even the layout of your bedroom. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with a bedroom that already exists, there is a good chance you will be limited by space and layout restrictions. Although your options may seem limited, there are more alternatives to choose from than one might think.

Because bedrooms are such personal rooms, not usually seen by many outsiders, they often evolve into one of the most eclectic rooms in the house. A bedroom is often the place where you’ll find collections of personal art and memorabilia, photographs, even a favorite piece of furniture, all tied together into one harmonious look-sometimes depicting a specific style, sometimes just an overall feel or theme. Decorative elements such as style, color, pattern and texture will also play a part in the final look you create.

Often we are limited by budget constraints when remodeling. There are a number of simple improvements that can be made in a bedroom that don’t cost a lot, and will achieve very effective results. Altering the floor plan and redefining the space can make what you already have more usable and efficient. If structural changes aren’t possible at this time, easy updates like replacing old wallpaper, adding recessed lights or installing plush new carpet can breathe new life into an old bedroom. This type of remodel won’t solve any space constriction problems, but the changes are easy and can do almost as much for the look of a bedroom as rearranging the walls-at half the cost.

A structural change is the most effective way to make a dramatic difference in an existing bedroom. A new bay window or a walk-in closet can change the entire feel of the room.

The old-fashioned nursery had the right basic ideas. It was essentially a room given over to children for which most parents were content to provide, if they could, a well-ventilated space with somewhere to sleep, plenty of floor/play space, somewhere to sit, some sort of games, drawing, work surface and reasonable storage.

In a sense this sort of framework is still in force today - but with some big differences. First, many of the clever and colorful ideas produced for nursery and primary schools to provide in­tellectual stimulus for their pupils have begun to trickle back into the home in the form of educational play­things, body-building structures and early learn­ing apparatus. And second, children today belong to a tech­nologically sophisticated genera­tion where the computer is becom­ing as commonplace as the tele­vision, and where audio-visual equipment replaces building bricks and snakes and ladders almost as a matter of course.

This means that any forward planning at the infant stage should involve thinking at least about the probability of having to make room for such things. While it is impos­sible to project several years ahead and visualize exactly what amazing new inventions are going to invade our lives, let alone what size and shape they are going to be or how many extra electric points and out­lets they’ll need, what you can do is think in terms of flexible arrange­ments in the home.

Parents of young infants will find it difficult to imagine anything at all beyond the immediate world of nappies and feeds, cots and baths but it doesn’t last forever and if that’s all they’ve planned for, they’ll find the room soon out­grown and unsuit­able for the next stage in their children’s lives. The time, money and effort spent on creating a room the chil­dren don’t want to use will be wasted.

So, when you are faced with this empty room that you want to take care of your children’s needs for the next eighteen years, remem­ber, as you make your plans, that ad­aptability is the name of the game.