Laughing, talking, playing, or just lounging –the family room is the place where home life grows. By nature it’s a multipurpose area: somewhere for the kids to dumps out all their blocks and built a city, a place to read quietly, watch TV, play cards and board games, show slides, flip trough the family album and laugh at how funny we use to look. The family room can also be called on to double as an entertaining center, eating area, sewing room, guest room, study.
At worst, a family room is where you put the old couch and TV and let the kids bounce around. At best a family room harmonizes the different interests an activity people like to share.
In this first chapter we offer ideas ranging from grand clan-gathering places to intimate family areas tucked into limited spaces. Most of the rooms were remodeled from existing space; some are add-on; some are new.
The theme of the rooms on pages 11 trough 19 is versatility. You’ll see how is various families have solved the problem of bringing adults and kids together in a casual but orderly atmosphere.
From pages 20 trough 23, you’ll find examples of the popular family room / kitchen combination, followed by sections on lighting, family rooms converted from patios, and a garage that became a spectacular split-level family lodge. Small and cozy family rooms bring this chapter to a close.
Sketches of the floor plans are included to show you overall arrangement of a room. You’ll also find a special features on storage (pages 16 and 17), skylights (pages 18 and 19), and artificial lighting (pages 24 and 25).
Family room are partly private souvenir shops, and each reflects the lives and tastes of its owners. We wouldn’t surprised to hear that you had shopped trough the ideas in this chapter and found a shelf system from one room, a fireplace from another, a color scheme from a third, and put them together to make a family room uniquely yours.