Putting room in the living room

There are dozens of dead corners and shy pockets in which to store your stuff, says Kya de Longchamps

THE living room is a hard pressed area of the home, traversed by all sorts of familial creatures, from marauding teenagers and spring-loaded toddlers, to exhausted adults who simply want to reach for the remote and flop into an obliging chair.

Chaotic surroundings do not lend themselves to relaxation. Even worse, those ‘reception’ rooms perform as a showcase of your lifestyle for guests — expected or otherwise. Heaving with detritus, this multi-purpose workhorse is never going to satisfy. Let’s get that storage in order.

MIND THE GAP: There are dozens of opportunities outside the main circulation areas where shy pockets, dead corners and even rangy areas of unexplored storage await discovery. Bookcases can flank a door from the floor to the ceiling and even wing their way over windows and doors. On an internal wall, this arrangement thickens up the separating partition, and stacked with objects will improve sound insulation room to room.

Window seats and runs of upholstered benches with storage underneath deliver extra seating with hidey holes in open cubbies or blind boxes to suit. Built-in blind storage matched to the surrounding wall colour can be very subtle. If you have a chance to use flush units set into partition walls include a dedicated closet. Have your architect sketch out some possibilities. That recess either side of the chimney breast offers a large swallow of indented space for framing out in slender shelves, presses, or even a false wall tailored in cabinets.

BOXING CLEVER: Large chic boxes are superb for micro-organising small knick-knackery you want disguised but close at hand. Add lids and you can stack boxes neatly using just the floor space of one single unit. Smaller boxes can sit on shelving, but resist the temptation to over-load them or hoard random objects. Wicker baskets favoured in kitchens and bathrooms work equally well on open shelving in the living room and are cheaply bought in groups at department stores and pound shops. Group boxes that are on the floor and only include them as needed or you’re living space will descend into a scene from Storage Wars.

VERSATILE BEAUTIES: Within the body of outwardly non-storage type furnishings all over the room, there are voids, some open, others neatly tucked away. It’s all about great design. A stool with a lift up lid would be a typical use of this other wasted room, but there are many other unexpected areas to flush out. A wonderful tale of the unexpected, the pendel clock from Ikea is based on a Swedish mora clock, and has book shelves set in the flared floor standing body. A classic from Carl Hagerling at €161.

If you need a second bed, choose a sofa-bed that digests its own linens when not in use. Littlewoods’ Cosmos sofa-bed has lift up arms and drawers and a clik-clak easy set up (213 x 85cm) €419.

For a steal in another leather effect ottoman in black, brown white or red, Argos offer a vast 100 x 50cm range for €65, and in any easy clean, robust synthetic fabric you can happily drape your shoes on or park it beneath a window to hide ballast. For a natural touch, their large seagrass and water hyacinth chests, double up as an occasional table and start at €59.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: If you have an open plan room, introducing room division immediately offers up extra shelving, table surfaces and cupboard opportunities. Oddly, splitting the room up lightly in this way often creates a more spacious scene, and you’re often only taking as little as a 25cm sliver from the floor to do it. You can go free-standing or build in something more sophisticated. Box style independent dividers, finished on both sides, just seem to sit happily in any room. EZ Living/Right Price has a range of oak Melbourne room dividers that can sit at a waist height or thrust to the ceiling from €299. Stability is key if the partition is not braced on a wall and achieving any sort of height. A set of blind cupboards loaded up will help root the piece to the floor, but if in doubt add supporting brackets to the wall touching the unit’s side.

If your sofa is dividing up the room into function areas, you can thicken up the partition by running a low shelving unit across the back of the sofa, allowing it to act as, say, a sideboard if your dining table is on the other side.

SYSTEM SHELVING AND MEDIA UNITS: Back to the wall, boxy style shelving units can be terraced together, and even stacked. Take a look at IKEA’s iconic Billy bookcase range for inspiration. Their Billy planner allows you to build the Billy to suit the exact space. Building-in more determinedly, every centimetre can be put to work floor to ceiling. Systems intended for the bedroom, kitchen or even utility room may work for you, so don’t dismiss the industrial flair of simple rail shelving such as Elfa (Howard’s Storage World. www.hsw.ie) and B&Qs Flexi range as an alternative to standard living room shelving units.

Slimline televisions may have taken refuge up the wall, but accompanying boxes, game consoles and other wiry debris, still need a home. Media units and sideboards are traditionally long and low but with the TV wall-hung or on its own stand you can suit yourself. Choose something to enhance the aesthetics of the room as there are some gorgeous pieces out there and include doors to disguise and tame any unattractive technical soup.

Even the most bewildered virgin DIYer should attempt a single wall shelf. Just think about what you intend the shelf to carry, what level you would like to view the objects and say out loud ‘level and stable’ as you work. If you are a book lover, look for shelving to take from 23cm-40cm volumes and break the lengths of spines up with the odd ornament for interest. Dividers in the shelving elements allow you some freedom for staging a pleasing jumble of independent pieces.