designing a room [solved]

Xenocide Geek

k so photobucket was being retarded and i don't have a program to resize my pictures handy, so open those spoilers at your own peril... very long pictures. also, sorry about grainyness, these are coming from my iphone

so yeah, i'm trying to figure out how to best work this room i have. this entire room is mine to deal with, and i can't figure out how to fucking make it work. right now, it's setup so that my computer is in a corner, there's a computer/monitor behind me for guests, and then the rest of the offices corners are unoccupied.

so here, first image is of the first wall. this wall has nothing on it except my bass amp/shit that can be moved:

second picture gives you an idea of the wall opposite of the one in the first picture. this is the wall/corners that have both the computers. you can see the glow from my corner, and the monitor from the other corner:

last picture is a little alcove of sorts, where i've setup basically my "entertainment" center. it's off to the right of my corner - the glow is the glow of my monitor. this alcove is pretty wide, can accommodate a fair amount of shit:

for scale, those movie posters are full sized movie posters, and that's not that small of an LCD television... like, 32 or 42", i believe.

my problem is that i have no fucking clue what to do. i'm at such a loss, and the messyness/lack of functionality this room has is really dragging on me

right now, it can accommodate two people comfortably; two chairs, two computers, etc. i don't find this to be conducive to a group atmosphere. in fact, even when two people are in the room, i tend to feel a bit cramped space wise.

those green counters in the picture run across ALL the walls, except the wall with the alcove. it's not shown, but the wall opposite of the alcove is just a wall with a green counter running across the entire length. counter is about waist high. this is because this room use to be an office. those boards on the wall are sound proof insulation - also double as a place for me to hang shit, which i've already started doing

what i need help with is like... can i turn this place into something cool with the limited amount of space i have?

i'm willing to basically do anything, with the exception of knocking the counters out of the office (given they might be a decent selling point to any potential buyers.)

right now i use approximately one corner of this room, and sometimes i turn on the TV next to me and watch the daily show/colbert report. i'd really like to turn this room into something cooler, but i have no idea how.

right now my running idea is to get a couch/loveseat that sits fairly close to the ground for in front of the little alcove with all my consoles and shit. i don't even know if it's possible to make this room accommodate more than two people without buying office chairs and making everything based around the counters... but i'm trying.

my absolute goal is to make this place more relaxed/accommodating to more than two just individuals. i want to be able to have people in here comfortably.

i'm open to any advice in making this place better. right now, it's severely in a funk.

SporkAndrew

If you're having trouble visualising how things could look in different configurations take accurate measurements of the room and everything in it and get some graph paper. Draw out a scale representation of the room on one sheet, and use a few others to cut out scale representations of all your furniture and everything that is moveable.

Then you can just slide everything around without having to heft all your furniture around and you might be able to figure out a better way of arranging things.

matthias00

Yeah I would really recommend drawing out a scaled floorplan of your room, maybe drawing out possible new floorplans when you think of them. It would also make advice a lot easier for us to give if we had something like that to work with...

desperaterobots

Sounds to me like a trip to IKEA is in order.

Szechuanosaurus

It's completely hockey bullshit, but look up some Feng Shui (or however the cool kids are spelling it these days). It won't magically balance your zen, but it's a pretty nifty way of organising a room in a reasonably logical manner. Which is crazy, because you're actually organising based on completely illogical presumptions, but hey ho.

One thing I would suggest is don't try to over-functionalise a room. Looking at those pictures, I see three different rooms - a TV room, a music room and an office. Now, I don't expect you to go buy a bigger house so if you absolutely need to use the room for all three things, perhaps arrange some sort of storage system so that you can use the room for one thing at a time. That way you can use the whole floorspace for any one activity and pack up the things you aren't using when you don't need them, making it more comfortable and less distracting to do any one activity in.

Popped Collar

Feng Shui WILL balance your zen. If you believe in it, you will feel good when you walk into the room that you built, full of little details.

Szechuanosaurus

Well, I guess. I was being intentionally obtuse. A lot of it is common sense. I mean, the fundamental principle of feng shui is tidy your shit up and be organised. Which generally does result in well being, all questionable spirituality aside.

So yeah, don't really on it to cure your cancer, but an Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui can be pretty good starting point for organising a room.

Evil_Reaver

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

It's completely hockey bullshit, but look up some Feng Shui (or however the cool kids are spelling it these days).

Hey, hockey isn't bullshit, man. :P

vonPoonBurGer

Evil_Reaver wrote: »

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

It's completely hockey bullshit, but look up some Feng Shui (or however the cool kids are spelling it these days).

Hey, hockey isn't bullshit, man. :P

I'm going to hope for his sake he meant "hokey".

Xenocide Geek wrote:

i'm willing to basically do anything, with the exception of knocking the counters out of the office (given they might be a decent selling point to any potential buyers.)

Man, if you want to do anything that isn't office-esque with that room, at least some of those counters have got to go. You're losing a huge amount of the floor space in that room to the counters. In addition, they create all this horizontal utility space at the edges of the room. In order to use any of that utility space (e.g. to put down a drink, for example), people need to face away from the center of the room, which is just not conducive to socializing. People naturally tend to form a circle or semicircle when socializing, facing inward. There's nothing mystic about that, it's just easier to socialize in a group when you can easily take in the gestures, body language and facial expressions of everyone in the group. You want your room to support the way that people tend to arrange themselves in these situations, but right now I think the room layout subtly undermines it.

The one wall you didn't show, it has to have a door in it, yeah? Either that or you get into that room through a window or trap door or something o_O . Anyway, the door must create a gap in the counters. You could easily remove half the counters while leaving the other half unmangled, and expand the entertainment-y section of the room into the space that frees up. The counter section that your guitar is next to in the photos, that seems to me to be a prime candidate for gutting. That ought to give you enough room for a full-sized couch in there somewhere, up against the wall freed up by ripping out that section of counters.

Get a coffee table to put in front of the couch, and maybe lose one of those two easy chairs to keep things from getting too cluttered. That easily gives you room for four people, six if you spin around those office chairs and have people sit in those. Move the TV to the left in that alcove, and angle it so it faces the couch. Get a not-too-tall storage unit to put to the right of the TV so there isn't a big empty gap in the alcove, something you can keep movies / games / game controllers in. Now your room naturally supports socializing, because the prime seating (the couch plus one or two of thouse lounge chairs) is at the edge of the room, in an arc, and the utility space (the coffee table) is right in front of that seating. But the only way I can see that working is if you get rid of at least some of that counter space.

Quoth

I recommend using a space planner to try to move furniture around without, you know, actually moving it.

Also, I firmly agree that the counters need to go, they are the real problem because you have to design around them, and they literally cannot be reworked as anything but what they are. At best you could keep one as a desk, but that's it. And trust me, they will not be a selling point to anyone. A buyer wants the flexibility to do what they want with a room, they don't want to be stuck with a room that can only be an office and nothing else.

Xenocide Geek

k i feel like a dick to just let this thread die without at least giving a minor update to the people who posted in it

took your guys advice, decided that the room really was trying to be too many things. so i'm keeping the counters, taking the television/consoles etc out of it, and just converting this into a computer room/kick ass office

i have another big ass room with a gigantic sectional couch just one door away, i'm moving everything in there (the room was called the "theater" for like, 6 years, for a reason), and that's gonna be my lounging room again.

thanks for the help! oddly, just realizing that it was trying to be too many things really put it into perspective for me.

solved.

Szechuanosaurus

It's a good move. It'll make both rooms a lot more relaxing and comfortable to use.