New colors make room seem cozy and roomy

THE NEWS & OBSERVER, Raleigh, NC Saturday, June 14, 2003

Dear Designer: We have lived in our home for four years. My biggest decorating problem has been our den. I want to make the room cozy, inviting and comfortable. We do all our TV viewing and reading in this room. When we have guests we are either in the kitchen or den area as well.

I have arranged the furniture five ways. I think painting the walls may help make it warmer but I can’t come up with a color to work with the furniture and blend with the kitchen. I also was thinking of a valance over the windows.

My husband dislikes coffee table. This is something I can live without, too, so I have agreed not to put one in our den. --J.J., Apex

Dear Designer asked Sally Williams of Colorful Concepts for help with this den.

Dear J.H.: I can certainly understand your struggle with the furniture and lighting in your den. I also love open floor plans, but they do make furniture placement a challenge. You have some great points -- a valance window treatment is certainly a must, and the sofa table is a good functional idea. Let’s start by looking at your floor plan and how the colors will flow together. Then, how to achieve your goal of making this room look more inviting, with the right colors and furnishings (including lighting and accessories).

I have spent some time in your home, talking with you about your desires for the den, and how your personal color preferences can work best in your new color scheme. As well as wanting the room to be cozy, inviting, and comfortable, you’d like the room to feel bigger. You like light, subdued colors, and also love the colors found in nature. Hanging throughout your home are beautiful wildlife and nature scenes painted by your father-in-law. These works are very special to you and your husband. Your color scheme needs to complement these works.

Color Scheme

The first thing I notices upon looking at your den, and the openness to the kitchen, is that you also need to add some color below the chair rail in your kitchen (there is a wallpaper above the chair rail). In fact, in order for this area of your home to really look its best, I recommend that you take the wall color selections we make for the den, and continue them through the kitchen, and into the side hallway (which is very visible from the den). The chair rail runs throughout these areas, and a common color theme will serve to provide a comfortable flow in these areas, which are most used when you are entertaining guests.

In selecting a specific color for your den, consider the other colors that you have on this floor, and the colors of the furnishings that you will be keeping in the den. All the areas on this floor are presently white, except the dining room, which has been recently painted a very nice sage green. The kitchen wallpaper, which you would like to keep, has scattered small flowers and leaves on a white background -- the colors are various shades of green, taupe, and rose. In the den you have warm honey tones in the wood of the entertainment center, the leather sofa, and an upholstered chair. The fabric of the upholstered chair is a large leaf pattern, which also has some shades of rust and green. The carpet in the den is light beige.

To truly complement the existing kitchen wallpaper, the warm wood tones, the green of the dining room, and your art collection, I recommend a light, creamy, color above the chair rail in the den and side hallway (Glidden color-Parchment 724). Below the chair rail, I recommend going a shade darker (Glidden color - a shade halfway to the next color on the paint chip, SandHill 635). These are both fairly light colors, which, with the addition of proper lighting, will help to give this room a larger feel. Both colors have a hint of yellow, and will add to the warm and welcoming feel of your den.

The paint used should be in an eggshell finish. This finish is much more washable than a flat finish (a big plus when you have children), and has a very slight sheen that reflects light and gives the color a lighter, brighter look. This slight reflective quality will also make the rooms seem larger.

Furniture Placement

Your first goal in arranging your den should be to make the fireplace, and the beautiful artwork above it, the focal point of the room, instead of your large entertainment center. Your next important consideration is to provide some balance to the room, in terms of the height and weight of the existing furnishings.

The den is approx. 13 feet by 17 feet, and you have several very large pieces of furniture to place. This is challenging, because there is only one full wall available for placing the entertainment center. One wall is taken up with a large window and a door leading to your back deck, the fireplace is centered on a second wall, and a third “wall” is almost completely open to your kitchen. To complicated matters, there is a heating vent centered on the floor of the one full wall, another vent centered below the large window, and the thermostat is on the wall to the left of the den as you enter from the kitchen. These items need to be kept clear of furnishings.

Begin by placing the TV unit of the entertainment center in the first left corner as you enter the den, and the two side units in the corner to the left of the fireplace. Shift the sofa on an angle to face the TV unit in the opposite corner. All the other furnishings should then be placed on angles in the room as well, complementing the placement of the dominant pieces in the room. Placing all the furnishings to cut off the corners of the room will provide a much more casual and welcoming feeling to the den.

New furniture

The art above the fireplace should be re-framed, in a wider, more substantial frame, so that it will be a more prominent feature above the focal point of the room. A large mirror, placed on the left wall, will reflect the outdoors through the large window on the opposite wall, and will serve to make the room feel larger.

I recommend you go with your idea of the sofa table, placing it behind the sofa, with two tall table lamps at each end of it. This will help visually balance the height of the furnishings on both sides of the fireplace. Also, this will offer additional lighting for the room, and specifically for people sitting on the sofa. In the corner behind the table place your tall plant.

Make this room more comfortable for entertaining friends, by adding seating and table space. I recommend you replace your dark green cushioned chair and footstool, with two stylish wicker chairs, with seat cushions in a deep golden color fabric. I am not referring to a loosely woven, casual wicker chair you might put out on your porch. Consider the much higher quality, and sophisticated designs, of companies such as Palacek. The lightness of wicker will help counterbalance the heavy look of the leather sofa and upholstered chair, helping to achieve the casual look you are working toward. Also, a set of nesting tables between these chairs would offer additional table space when needed.

Lighting

The den does not get any direct sunlight all day, and trees are blocking the light to the windows. This multi-purpose room needs a variety of types of additional lighting, for use on different occasions. As well as the two table lamps previously mentioned, I suggest you add an overhead light to the fan, with a dimmer switch so that you can adjust the intensity of this light for different moods. An arc-style floor lamp behind the upholstered chair next to the fireplace, would be a comfortable reading light. Ideally, this should be a three-way lamp, which can be switched to three different intensities, as needed in this multi-purpose room. Up-light the plant that is in the corner behind the sofa table, by placing an up-facing spotlight at its base. This will provide beautiful accent lighting.

Valance

A valance window treatment will add a beautiful decorative touch to the room, and will help to draw the eye upward on the right side of the den. This will visually enlarge your space, as well as complementing the height of the wall units that are on the left side of the den. I recommend a light airy swag style valance, hanging on a wooden rod. A rod that is not too heavy or ornate, in a wood tone similar to the warm honey of some of your furnishings, would be ideal. A fabric with a subtle pattern, predominately medium gold, will look beautiful and not too formal. A simple tassel at either end would be the final touch.

I hope you love your new room!