![]() Architectural elements, perhaps an interior archway or a recessed niche in the wall, can also break up the monotony, architect Brown said. Homeowners can give people direction, she said, by making hallways attractive and providing focal points, such as spotlighted artwork and dressed-up windows, along the way. “You want to keep people moving through those transitional spaces, but if people see a long dark hallway, they don’t want to go through it,” Arakaki said. In some cases, pathways through a house are sensible but not necessarily pleasant or attractive. “A room divider that’s done right both separates and joins the rooms at the same time,” she said. To define areas within open spaces, Capelaci makes the most of “duplicative” or multi-functional built-in furniture pieces. The mini rooms, like “TV-watching area” and “home office,” can be defined by area rugs, appropriate furniture and task lighting. To prevent the space from looking like “a mass of furniture,” designer Christy Arakaki of Ryan Taylors Interior Design in Fullerton recommended creating mini rooms within the space with a main traffic pattern through the middle. The number of homes larger than 2,400 square feet continues to rise, from 10% in 1970 to 42% in 2005, according to the U.S. And this is frequently possible in today’s larger homes. People want larger rooms that have multiple functions,” said Chris Brown, architect and owner of Architectus, an architectural firm in Long Beach. ![]() “There is a big desire for flexibility and space right now. ![]() In opening up spaces, designers say it’s important to maintain flow by defining the area’s functions in a cohesive way. “It’s doubled our living and entertaining area,” she said. Without the dinette, the seating area flows more easily into the adjacent space and seems bigger. The dining area is now a small round floating table at the end of the island, a few inches below the counter. ![]() “It really plays up the window area and ties the three spaces together,” Ackermann said. She took out the dinette set and installed a built-in window seat against the wall below a window. Jo-Ann Capelaci, an interior designer with Garrett Interiors of Woodland Hills, reconfigured the island so it was longer and ran vertically through the space. “We lived in the seating area and wanted it to feel more spacious but didn’t know what to do about it,” Ackermann said. The area was originally three different rooms: a narrow kitchen separated from a tiny dinette area by a horizontal kitchen island with a sitting room on the other side of the dinette. Joan Ackermann rethought the purpose of several rooms when she reworked the kitchen area in her Simi Valley condominium. The kitchen had a small, adjoining unused utility room where she installed a banquette and created a breakfast nook. Zieba cited her own kitchen, which had no real dining area, as an example. “Just because it’s always been called the living room doesn’t mean you can’t turn it into the family room,” she said. Zieba encourages homeowners to consider changing the purpose of a room if the flow doesn’t seem right. “We now have a more welcoming entrance way that leads to the family room and kitchen,” Taylor said. ![]() Then she turned the solarium into a family room that connects to the kitchen. Zieba and her contractor ended up removing the wall between the entrance and the small TV room and integrated that space into the entrance hall. “You had to go through a closed door, then a small TV-room area, then through a solarium and another exterior door to get there,” she said. Karen Taylor, who inherited her grandmother’s 1940s bungalow in Long Beach, found that the path from its entrance to its kitchen was long and arduous. “The sight line should go as far as possible through a house,” Zieba said. with her husband, Joe, there should be a sensible, easy and pleasant path through the space without going through too many rooms or around too many obstructions. Once you are inside, said Karen Zieba, who owns the Long Beach-based remodeling firm Zieba Builders Inc. If there are space limitations, Sinicrope said, an area rug and a hall tree can do the job, as can an umbrella stand or even a small table inside the door for keys and mail. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |