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Interior design ...
We stopped by the house last night to take measurements of all the rooms so we can start working out where things should go.
I worked out the dimensions of the living area and its various pieces in Photoshop last ngith and started experimenting with furniture arrangements.
Photo of the side of the room with the cable outlet and more wall space. This is going to be the TV area, mostly because the cable outlet is there, there's more wall space, and there's more room. Unfortunately, it's also where the major thoroughfare to the rest of the house is, so pathways are important. There are skylights in the ceiling whose walls are canted to throw light on the left-side wall in the diagrams linked below (the south wall), which means that when the TV is along that wall, some sort of roof will have to be nailed to the TV stand, as it is a cabinet with a back wall, but no cover. (It's a nice 42" plasma TV, so we're taking good care of it. :D There's also a media stand that holds all Toby's game boxes, the DVR, etc. which will end up in the corner on all of them, I suspect.)
Each square = 1 foot in the diagrams. Our major furniture consists of Toby's right-hand chaise and my loveseat. Both in a color that's supposed to be brown but is so dark it reads as almost black, and the arm on my loveseat can be put on either side. They will clip together into a couch (which I hope to do, given that I'm tired of shoving the cushion back on to mine every other day). The chair is the one that's half-obscured on the left in this shot, and as it's so tall I may end up replacing it with a shorter one.
Option 1 - Requires me to continue shoving the cushion back on to the loveseat, requires anyone with a drink to lean forward awkwardly to put it on the coffee table. But the TV is out of direct glare.
Option 2 - Still no side tables, limited seating.
Option 3 - Toby's choice, as it would be easiest to hide the surround-sound cables. Better side tables, so I like it, but the TV is against the Wall of Glare.
Option 4 - Option 3 rotated. Less maneuverability in it, corner of chaise/loveseat couch visually blocking the pathway to the rest of the house, harder to string cables for surround sound (people walking behind the couch will run into them as well), but TV is not against the Wall o'Glare.
The other side of the room.
The Wall o'Window into the Dark Cavernous Ominous Garden Room. That square archway (is that an oxymoron?) into the dark, cavernous office space will most likely be partitioned off using sliding panel curtains of some sort on hardware like this. That way the office with its computers can be blocked off from the sight of pizza guys and other strangers at the door, but be opened up to the rest of the room at will. I like that, because all of a sudden we don't have to pay attention to the traffic pattern that way, and can use the whole space for seating or whatever.
That being said, we have no idea what's going to go there. The TV area pretty much has all the living-room furniture we own in it. :) NO it is not going to be a dining area - there's a breakfast nook in the kitchen that'll be handy for that. I've got a large coffee table that won't fit over in the TV area which will probably be going over in this area, but no idea what I'm going to do otherwise. Hm.
I am in a serious Modern frame of mind also, and am cursing the fact that my taste outstrips my budget. The older I get the less tolerant I am of rooms in which crap is thrown together every which way, too, so the proper interior design is something that's important to me. :) It does sort of annoy me that the TV is the focal point of the room, but as we're not in a house that allows for a proper media room, we're stuck with this. All I can do is make the other half of the room nice and inviting. Suggestions welcome for everything! (P.S. I hate it when furniture is shoved up against the wall as if you're constructing a dance floor. If furniture is against the wall, there needs to be reason for it, like that TV stand. Or it's a bookcase.)
[ETA: Even wackier option: we curtain off the Wall o'Windows into the Dark Ominous Garden Room and center the TV stand there. We'd have to run the cable along the corner of the wall and floor, but that could be done. I think it might allow us to place more furniture, farther out from the TV, and if we make the current TV area into a small reading nook with bookshelves, a couple of club chairs, and a side table of some sort, it would leave the pathway to the kitchen/rest of house open. Cons: the TV would be visible from the door, and it would darken the place up a bit more (Toby doesn't care as he is the original Cave Dweller, but it might bother me.)]
I worked out the dimensions of the living area and its various pieces in Photoshop last ngith and started experimenting with furniture arrangements.
Photo of the side of the room with the cable outlet and more wall space. This is going to be the TV area, mostly because the cable outlet is there, there's more wall space, and there's more room. Unfortunately, it's also where the major thoroughfare to the rest of the house is, so pathways are important. There are skylights in the ceiling whose walls are canted to throw light on the left-side wall in the diagrams linked below (the south wall), which means that when the TV is along that wall, some sort of roof will have to be nailed to the TV stand, as it is a cabinet with a back wall, but no cover. (It's a nice 42" plasma TV, so we're taking good care of it. :D There's also a media stand that holds all Toby's game boxes, the DVR, etc. which will end up in the corner on all of them, I suspect.)
Each square = 1 foot in the diagrams. Our major furniture consists of Toby's right-hand chaise and my loveseat. Both in a color that's supposed to be brown but is so dark it reads as almost black, and the arm on my loveseat can be put on either side. They will clip together into a couch (which I hope to do, given that I'm tired of shoving the cushion back on to mine every other day). The chair is the one that's half-obscured on the left in this shot, and as it's so tall I may end up replacing it with a shorter one.
Option 1 - Requires me to continue shoving the cushion back on to the loveseat, requires anyone with a drink to lean forward awkwardly to put it on the coffee table. But the TV is out of direct glare.
Option 2 - Still no side tables, limited seating.
Option 3 - Toby's choice, as it would be easiest to hide the surround-sound cables. Better side tables, so I like it, but the TV is against the Wall of Glare.
Option 4 - Option 3 rotated. Less maneuverability in it, corner of chaise/loveseat couch visually blocking the pathway to the rest of the house, harder to string cables for surround sound (people walking behind the couch will run into them as well), but TV is not against the Wall o'Glare.
The other side of the room.
The Wall o'Window into the Dark Cavernous Ominous Garden Room. That square archway (is that an oxymoron?) into the dark, cavernous office space will most likely be partitioned off using sliding panel curtains of some sort on hardware like this. That way the office with its computers can be blocked off from the sight of pizza guys and other strangers at the door, but be opened up to the rest of the room at will. I like that, because all of a sudden we don't have to pay attention to the traffic pattern that way, and can use the whole space for seating or whatever.
That being said, we have no idea what's going to go there. The TV area pretty much has all the living-room furniture we own in it. :) NO it is not going to be a dining area - there's a breakfast nook in the kitchen that'll be handy for that. I've got a large coffee table that won't fit over in the TV area which will probably be going over in this area, but no idea what I'm going to do otherwise. Hm.
I am in a serious Modern frame of mind also, and am cursing the fact that my taste outstrips my budget. The older I get the less tolerant I am of rooms in which crap is thrown together every which way, too, so the proper interior design is something that's important to me. :) It does sort of annoy me that the TV is the focal point of the room, but as we're not in a house that allows for a proper media room, we're stuck with this. All I can do is make the other half of the room nice and inviting. Suggestions welcome for everything! (P.S. I hate it when furniture is shoved up against the wall as if you're constructing a dance floor. If furniture is against the wall, there needs to be reason for it, like that TV stand. Or it's a bookcase.)
[ETA: Even wackier option: we curtain off the Wall o'Windows into the Dark Ominous Garden Room and center the TV stand there. We'd have to run the cable along the corner of the wall and floor, but that could be done. I think it might allow us to place more furniture, farther out from the TV, and if we make the current TV area into a small reading nook with bookshelves, a couple of club chairs, and a side table of some sort, it would leave the pathway to the kitchen/rest of house open. Cons: the TV would be visible from the door, and it would darken the place up a bit more (Toby doesn't care as he is the original Cave Dweller, but it might bother me.)]
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-consider calling the cable company to move the cable. It's a matter of drilling a hole through the wall. (Caulk/cover old hole.)
-Admit that the TV is the room's focus and put the TV on the hearth. The traffic pattern is designed so that the hearth area is the focus, so this is just going with the flow.
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The weird shape of the fireplace is due to our measurements not quite matching up. It's rectangular in real life. :)
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I just worked out my own configuration to accommodate a huge TV and internet in a house built in 1915 that has very few outlets, windows & fireplaces in odd places, and big heating registers everywhere. So, too exhausted to offer any ideas.