Taking cues from helps you plan your dining-room-turned-living-space.
In large homes, many unused areas can be converted to extra living space. If you have a never-used formal dining room, you can convert this area to a living space. You just have to keep some of the principles of studio-apartment decorating in mind. Making the area more apartment-like involves closing off the area and choosing room arrangements that encourage economy of space, as well as furnishings serve more than one purpose. Though it's minus a bathroom and a kitchen sink, the room otherwise can be a self-contained living area.
Instructions
1. Close off the space for privacy with a heavy curtain. By putting up a curtain instead of a door, you won't have to take down a door if you ever convert the room back to a dining area.
2. Separate each area with paint, meaning that you can create a kitchen area, a bedroom area and a reading area and paint each corner a separate but complementary color. The colors will provide a visual --- and therefore a mental --- distinction between each space, thus making it seem more like a home with different types of rooms.
3. Get a bed with storage drawers underneath. This saves space, which will be at a premium.
4. Back the couch up against the bed. You can partition the room off in this way. By placing large pillows on the bed up against the back of the couch, you create a headboard of sorts.
5. Place a throw rug in front of the couch. Add a coffee table and one or two chairs on the other side to create a sitting area.
6. Bring in an armoire if there's no closet. You'll be able to hang clothes and store your shoes neatly in the bottom of the armoire.
7. Bring in shelves for your books and items such as art and hobby supplies. Cover the front with a curtain if you'd like the contents of the shelves to be hidden.
8. Set up a basic kitchen area. Include items such as a mini-fridge, a coffee maker and a microwave. Dishes for snacks and unrefrigerated food can be kept on the shelves. Place the kitchen area and the living area next to one another, because you're going to have items from both on the shelves.
9. Look for or make items that serve double duty. For example, if you need to store some papers and get metal file cabinets for that purpose, you can turn the cabinets into part of the furniture. Place two cabinets of the same height together and cover them with a long tablecloth. This becomes a table for books, flower arrangements and other household items.
Tags: kitchen area, area living, items such, living area, studio-apartment decorating