A Fun, Colorful Lounge

Living in Katy Texas, most homes come with a gameroom, a media room or some type of bonus room, designed to be the family hang out spot. I often get clients who are not sure what to do with these areas to make them fun and interesting. Most people are very accustomed to decorating the rest of their home in neutral colors, that they think they have to keep the flow going in their lounges or game areas. I beg to differ! A lounge or gameroom should be a fun hang out spot with a big personality! After all, this is where you go to let your hair down, play video games, watch the football game and spend quality time with family and friends. There is no reason why these areas should look exactly the same as the rest of the home, so we are going to kick it up a few notches and create a fun, colorful space for today's virtual game room.

Our color palette will consist of teal, tangerine, fuchsia, chartreuse, and white. With such a palette, we have to be careful not to end up with a clown house or a crazy house for that matter. So we'll add color where it counts without becoming overkill.

Let's get started with our wall color. Instead of just slapping on some paint on our walls, we will do a two-tone horizontal stripe paint technique but using very light colors. Each stripe will be about 24" high and will wrap around the entire room. We'll use Sherwin Williams SW6483 Buoyant Blue (in a flat finish) alternated with SW6484 Meander Blue (in eggshell finish). Using two different finishes will create a visible contrast between these two light colors with similar shades, without being the focus of the room.

Now that we have the walls painted, we can start bringing in our furniture pieces. Our sectional sofa from Norwalk Furniture is the right mix of comfort, function and beauty. We'll make it pop by doing it in a colorful tangerine with white piping.

We'll add some pillows in these beautiful fabrics.

Next we'll add two chairs to round off the seating area. These Norwalk chairs done in this fun fabric with a contrast piping is perfect

A couple of ottomans is always great as well. Great for extra seating for guests. These fun round ottomans from Norwalk Furniture will be placed by the window in the main seating area.

Next we will add our cocktail table and end tables. These urban contemporary, meets pedigreed traditional tables are from Hooker Furniture Trilogy Collection.

TV watching is an important function in this room, so we'll add a console from Lexington Home Brands for a big screen TV, and a place to store games and display personal items.

We will create an area for playing board games or to act as a bar. This pub table and chairs from Hooker Furniture are the right scale for our game room. We will re-upholster the stools in this fabric from Duralee.

Now for our window treatment. We will create a cornice board with a couple of panels. We'll use these two fabrics - the solid as the cornice board, adding nailhead trim, and the circle fabric as the valance. That oughta up the fun factor in this room.

We'll add an orange stripe on the leading edge of each panel to tie in the drapeery to the rest of the room.

Next we'll add some artwork. These fun, colorful, floral glicee are the right ticket for this space.

These gorgeous capiz shell pendants from Worlds Away will look great over the seating area hung in a cluster of three at different heights

We will add other colorful accessories to complete the room. And our colorful game room is finished. Hope you are inspired to create a fun, colorful room in your home.

My top three Fun Finds of the week:

The Le Premier chair by Christopher Guy. Can you say WOW!

This sweet "Beattles" settee from Vanguard Furniture

How fun is this chair from Anthropologie!

We'll throw in just one more fun chair from Christopher Guy

A "Woodland Chic" Sleeping Porch

Yes, I admit it....."Woodland Chic" is a term I just made up (In case you were wondering, that is). I had to come up with a title for this blog post somehow. Woodland chic is a design style that uses objects that can be found in nature, out in the woods. The woods used on furniture is rough hewn or in their natural state.... just really woodsy with a casual elegant twist. We are not going for a lodge look, although we may borrow some ideas from that design style.

Your next question might be "what is a sleeping porch?" Well, back before air conditioning was available, people would build their homes with an enclosed screen porch, where they would sleep on hot, humid nights.

For our virtual sleeping porch, we will actually create a small sleeping area and seating area for guests. Let's start with the wall color. Since this is a porch, there is really just one full wall to speak of - the other walls are windows for the upper half. we will add paint to the minimal amount of wall space. Our paint color of choice is Sherwin Williams SW6408 Wheat Grass. This green is the perfect tone for a woodland inspired room.

We'll add our window treatment at this point. We will keep them as simple functional panels that can be drawn close for privacy at night. We will use this cashmere color solid linen sheer without lining.

Next we'll move into our sleeping area. We will bring in a full size iron canopy bed. This beauty from Sundance Catalog is a great start.

Our bedding will definitely be influenecd by our woodland surroundings. Our duvet will be made from this beautiful nature inspired fabric from Calico Corners called Woodland Moss. The other fabrics will be made into pillows and shams.

Next we'll introduce our nightstands for either side of the bed. This sketch of a  solid wood nightstand from La Lune Collection in Wisconsin is the perfect woodland inspired piece.

For our dresser, we chose a weathered teak sideboard from Sundance Catalog

Next we will add an area rug for some warmth underfoot and to define the sleeping area. This wood grain patterned rug is a great choice.

Next we'll add lighting and accessories. We'll add this mirror above the dresser with the sconces on either side.

Floral is always a nice touch in any room. This waterlike hydrangea bouquet is from NDI. No one can tell that it's not real

We'll add a grid of these bird drawings by British artist Robert Clarke on either side of our canopy bed.

Now for our seating area. We'll add these two rustic wood chairs from La Lune Collection. We'll reupholster them in a solid green linen fabric with contrast welt.

We'll add a pillow to each chair

We'll bring in a small sleek sofa for some additional seating. We will keep this Kravet sofa in the same mushroom fabric shown.

We'll add some pillows o the sofa as well

Now for our area rug. this wool rug from Safavieh is a comfortable and natural choice

Next we'll add our beautiful cocktail table from Sundance Catalog

Next we'll add the light fixtures for each area. This twig chandelier from Shades of Light is the perfect woodland chic choice for the sleeping area and the lantern below is for the seating area

Two of the lamps will flank our canopy bed

This floor lamp will be used in our seating area

It's refreshing to decorate a room inspired by nature. Hope you are inspired to create the home of your dreams.

My Top Fun Finds Of The Week:

These gorgeous needle point and embroidered pillows from Peking Handicraft Inc