Carve out cozy retreat
Interior designers sometimes assume that the terms they use — especially seemingly common ones — will cause no confusion on the part of a client. It isn’t always so. Take the term “alcove,” for example. Everyone knows it refers to a cozy recess in a room — right? Wrong. Homeowners don’t all have the same image of an alcove. They may be uncertain about what exactly it involves, particularly if construction is going to be necessary.
Q: The home we bought a few years ago includes a large family room that has proved to be an unfriendly space. It has a cathedral ceiling that gives the room a grandiose appearance while also contributing to gargantuan heating and air-conditioning bills. We’ve tried rearranging our contemporary-style furniture, creating groupings for reading, TV-watching and conversation. The room still feels like a public space — somewhat similar to the VIP lounge in an airport. Are there ways to make the space truly family-friendly without partitioning it?
A: My first suggestion for settings of the sort you describe is to define small sections within them by means of lighting effects, floor coverings and the color of fabrics on seating pieces. By establishing distinct functional areas, that tactic will often succeed in making a grandly scaled room appear more welcoming. However, it sounds as though you’ve already taken this general approach and found it unsatisfactory.
Have you also tried adjusting the height of some of the furnishings? A few high-backed chairs could be added, for example, and you might suspend a decorative light fixture from that tall ceiling.
You also could undertake structural changes that, while not partitioning the room, will divide it into segments. The accompanying photo offers an example of what I’m suggesting. This setting is included in “Home by Design,” a Taunton Press book written by Sarah Susanka. What we see here is an alcove that was carved out of a large space by lowering part of the ceiling and adding low walls and decorative columns to produce a sense of enclosure.
A similar effect could be achieved with a pair of horizontally oriented bookcases or storage cabinets. Drapery panels might also be used in place of columns. Note that a bulkhead also was built in this model in order to house the down lighting, which helps further delineate the alcove. It’s easy to imagine this as a quiet, private nook within a multipurpose space.
Rita St. Clair is a syndicated columnist with Tribune Media Services Inc. E-mail general interior design questions to her at rsca@ritastclair.com.