I’m always encouraging clients to make their rooms more functional, more beautiful, and more “them.”  This is a great example of taking an underused room and making it highly useful and true to the homeowner’s interests.  These homeowners are true bibliophiles (that means they’re readers :)).  But all their books and bookcases were stuffed into a guest bedroom.  It made perfect sense to bring the books into the place they actually lived – or should I say, now actually live.  This room had little function for them before, except to hold hand-me-down furniture that didn’t reflect their own tastes.

Here’s the before:

After clearing the room, we dragged down the bookcases from the guest room and lined adjoining walls with them to create some coziness.  We really didn’t have quite enough bookcases, so we left space for artwork and topped the area with a single board.  I knew we needed a modern table and chairs.  I found the Saarinen-ish tulip table at IKEA, and the blue and metal chairs at a local consignment furniture store.  When the new room came together, the personality of the room was a much better reflection of the personality of the homeowners.

Here’s the after:

This is the perfect place to read the newspaper and have a morning cup of coffee and a bagel.  Or check email and read a novel.  Or do homework or freelance writing or whatever.  Or have an intimate meal by candlelight.   Or park the hor dourves for guests at an informal party.  What would be the perfect centerpiece on this table?  A stack of books, of course.

How’s this for a bonus?  Here’s the Before/After of the opposite side of the room.  I basically flipped the living room and dining room in this rectangular space.

Before: 

And here’s the after:

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