How can I make the space for inviting and warm...
Hello All,
I have recently moved into a house with a kitchen/diner/lounge area - open plan (at least, that is what we use it for!). We do have a separate living room but this seems to be the go-to place for myself and the 2 kids. I am struggling to make it seem more homely and warm - it just feels so cold and, well, boring, at the moment. I was thinking about having some pictures and floating shelves, but I am finding it hard to be objective about the space and decide where they should go. I have a large tv in front of the corner sofa, so I am wondering whether pictures on the wall above the sofa would look too busy?. Perhaps a picture above the dining table..but would that look too square with that tv adjacent to it..
I would really appreciate any advice anyone could give me - because I am just coming up blank! Thank you for reading x
Comments (20)
Daisy England
2 years ago
thistlejak
2 years agoRelated Discussions
Workshop challenge - how do I make a big space work and look smart
Comments (8)Hi. It's difficult to say without knowing exactly what the business requirements are. What flooring is down atm as I would go for large concrete effect tiles to minimise flooring costs? Add rugs for texture plus if you need to work on the floor? I would divide the area so you have a work area and a seating area with kitchenette. Use industriał style dividers or bookcases to split the space. Colours will need to be light for working so maybe a very pale grey or white for walls but use dark blue or charcoal velvet for a sofa with maybe a leather chair. I assume the other end of the room is the same? I would build cupboards with shelves ŵall to ceiling, deep enough to hold fabric ( I might be tempted to paint these in a charcoal though!). Maybe look at a library ladder for reaching the top shelves. I'd buy an enormous old desk in wood and leather, have a look in antique shops for the double style desks. You can buy large vintage filing cabinets for any buttons, threads etc ( there's an antique shop in long melford which sells cabinets and desks if you're close to suffolk!) Use a large pendant light in the seating area with floor lamps but maybe look at the industriał style track lighting for the working area combined with task lights for the desk. You could also add mirrors to bounce the light...See MoreHow to make a Victorian house warm?
Comments (24)Hello! We have done two things which relate to some of the issues you describe. However, I should point out that we don't have a cellar; we have ground around 30cm below our ground floor joists. We have wooden floorboards rather than concrete - but I would imagine concrete would be easier to insulate, perhaps from below, in the ceiling of the cellar? Anyway, this is what we did: We insulated under our floor borads on the ground floor. (Note that not every single one has to be lifted, you lift a few every foot or so). Celotex was inserted between the joists. There is a risk the insulation will fall out onto the ground below, so they cut it slightly too big and then hammer it in. It's wedged in very tight and we have had none fall out two years later. As I wrote in my post above as well, we added angled vent covers outside to reduce the draft coming in under the floorboards. We were very concerned about air cirulation when doing all of this, but we have come to the conclusion that the air circulation is already so large under our ground floor, that the celotex and vent covers aren't really an issue. It's not like we have sealed everything shut, there are still plenty of tiny gaps everywhere. We haven't had any issues with mould or anything like that. The other thing we have done more recently is to balance our radiators. We had the problem that our front room was extremely cold relative to the rest of the house (although we had high spec/high BTU radiators in all rooms). We thought this may have been due to low power on the radiators, but in fact after doing a big rebalancing exercise, it's now the warmest room in the house. We're quite surprised how much of a difference rebalancing makes. There are plenty of guides online which we followed; essentially, what you do is you first check how open each radiator is (check the lockshield valve, not the TSV!). We wrote this down on a piece of paper for each radiator in the house (e.g. "fully open", "3/4 open", etc). We then put the heating on from cold and ran around the house checking which radiator fires up first/last. Made a note of this on paper. We then realised that in our case, although the front room radiator was fully open (which would suggest it should get the hot water first), in fact so were many of the radiators that are closer to the boiler. As a result, the hot water was going to those closer ones first (it takes the easiest route). The solution was to close the lockshield valves on the radiators closer to the boiler (not completely, you do it 1/4 of a turn at a time and check the effect). After a few runs we were able to get to a point where the hot water was filling up the front room radiators first. Now it's great. I hope this can help you! Good luck!...See MoreBefore & After: A cramped kitchen re-modeled to an inviting open space
Comments (6)Hi everyone. We are sorry that you feel this way, so we have attached a few images below to demonstrate the entire kitchen before the makeover. We tend to use 1 - 2 images maximum for this type of post and we can see that this has limited the ability for full clarity on the kitchen before. We hope this helps and thank you for engaging with us!...See MoreHelp! Warming up a cold conservatory to make it part of living space?
Comments (3)I can understand why you’ve set the couple of chairs looking out at the garden (for the view) but not sure that’s right. I would have arranged the room as I would a lounge; facing together or inwards or at the very least at an angle. I think the brickwork and the flooring make it look very rustic. If you have underfloor heating then I can’t see you being able to swap it. It reminds me of a quarry floor. Could you have a large square of seagrass carpet? Perhaps the small base wall could be painted?...See MoreFiona P
2 years agotamp75
2 years ago
Sonia
2 years agoSonia
2 years agoTamp75 I’m afraid it just says green wall. Fat lot of help. Several people were asking too but no reply.
tamp75
2 years ago
Avril
2 years agoHave you got any plants in the space? Made a big difference when I introduced these into my room.
If you are not keen on anything at low level you could use wall pots like these
tamp75
2 years ago
Joanna Bradley
2 years agoFiona P
2 years agoEllie
2 years agohedgehog99
2 years ago
CWD
2 years ago
PRO- PRO
hock79
2 years agoCath Farrar
2 years agotamp75
2 years ago
Sonia