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The Living Room Every Man Wants to Come Home To — Transcript

by The Masculine Home · 3,726 words · 573 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00If you were to hear about this room
0:01before it was designed, you would
0:02probably say, "That sounds great. What's
0:04wrong with that?" It's large and open
0:06with plenty of natural light. The
0:08ceiling begins at 9 ft on one side and
0:10climbs all the way to 17 on the other.
0:13On paper, those could be understood as
0:15advantages. But if you were to
0:17experience the room firsthand as a blank
0:19slate, you would realize that experience
0:22is overwhelming. The space felt enormous
0:24without feeling grounded. The walls were
0:26tall and bare, and because the living
0:28area opened directly into the kitchen,
0:31there wasn't much telling you where one
0:33space ended and the other began.
0:35Nicholas wanted almost the exact
0:36opposite feeling. He wanted this to
0:38become a dark, cozy living room with a
0:41really good-sized television and plenty
0:43of comfortable seating. He had a 91in
0:46dark gray sofa that needed to be
0:47incorporated. And then there is a very
0:50long stretch of wall to be dealt with.
0:52He didn't necessarily want it filled
0:53with things. He just wanted it to stop
0:55feeling empty. So, making this room feel
0:58larger was obviously never the
0:59challenge. It had more than enough
1:01volume already. The challenge was
1:03figuring out how to take all of that
1:05openness and make it feel intimate. My
1:08name is Chudrey and today I'll be
1:09walking you through how that was done.
1:11If you're a returning subscriber, hit
1:12the thumbs up. If you're new here,
1:14hopefully by the end of this video
1:16you'll be a subscriber. Remember that if
1:18you would like our help in designing
1:20your room, you can have that help by
1:22clicking the link in the description
1:24below. The living room area is roughly
1:2616 by19 ft. Nicholas requested that the
1:29flooring remain the same. The sofa I
1:32mentioned earlier would need to be used,
1:33and the room of course will still be
1:35completely open to the kitchen. What
1:37makes this space unusual is what's
1:40happening above. The ceiling is
1:42structured at a slant that reaches a
1:44decent height. When you're in the room,
1:46your eye naturally follows that slope.
1:48It travels upward into all of this open
1:51space. And then there isn't much waiting
1:52for you when it gets there. You have a
1:54huge uninterrupted wall, a few vents, a
1:57basic ceiling fixture, and quite a bit
1:59of empty surface. That becomes important
2:01because if we just brought in new
2:03furniture, put something large on the
2:04wall, and called the room finished, the
2:06furniture would still be sitting beneath
2:08a bunch of empty volume. If we wanted
2:10the room to feel substantially
2:12different, the architecture itself was
2:14going to have to start doing some of the
2:15work. Let's take a look at what we did.
2:17The obvious difference is that the room
2:19has become considerably darker. But it's
2:21not the darkness that's doing all the
2:23transformation work. It's the visual
2:25weight. There's structure overhead. Now,
2:27the furniture has enough mass to hold
2:29the lower portion of the room. And as
2:31your eye moves around that space, it
2:33keeps encountering something that gives
2:35the room definition. What's great is
2:37that we haven't really lost the openness
2:39in the process. The ceiling is still
2:41tall. The kitchen is still connected.
2:43You're still very aware that you're
2:45standing inside a larger living room,
2:47but now the living room feels like a
2:49true destination within an open concept
2:52home. Stylistically, I would describe
2:54the room as dark, modern, rustic with
2:57some modern heritage influence. There
2:59are characteristics of a gentleman's
3:01lounge in here as well, but there's no
3:02reason to rely on all of the things that
3:05normally get used to announce that kind
3:07of room. Nicholas didn't mention the
3:09room as a whiskey or cigar lounge, so
3:12there's no reason to use that imagery.
3:14We don't need a collection of
3:15stereotypically masculine objects placed
3:18around the room to tell you who it's
3:20intended for. The room already has that
3:22character. It comes from the weight of
3:24the furniture, the materials, the
3:26proportions, the lighting, and what
3:27we've done architecturally. So, let's
3:29talk about that architecture. One of the
3:32biggest opportunities in this room also
3:34happened to be one of its biggest
3:35problems, the ceiling. Originally, it
3:38read as one massive uninterrupted
3:40surface. And when a ceiling is reaching
3:4317 ft, allowing your eye to take in that
3:45entire plane at once, it only makes the
3:48volume feel larger. So, we introduced
3:50these heavy wood beams across the slope
3:52and filled the spaces between them with
3:54a lighter tongue and grove treatment
3:56that changes what happens when you look
3:58up. Instead of your eye disappearing
4:00into one vast surface, the beams
4:03interrupt it all along the way. They
4:05divide all of that volume and it becomes
4:07smaller sections and in a peculiar way
4:10visually lowers the ceiling without
4:12physically lowering it at all. We did
4:14consider how far to take the darkness
4:16overhead. The walls are black, so
4:17carrying the same treatment across the
4:19ceiling would certainly have made the
4:21room more enveloping. But over a ceiling
4:24this large, it might run the risk of
4:26crossing the line between intimate and
4:28potentially oppressive, at least for a
4:31living room inside of a residential
4:33home. The lighter boards give the eye
4:35some relief. They also allow light to
4:37reflect back into the room, while the
4:39stained beams still give us the strength
4:41and warmth we wanted. And because those
4:43same wood tones appear again in the
4:45furniture and cabinetry below, the
4:47ceiling doesn't feel like a separate
4:48design idea floating above everything
4:50else. It belongs to the room. We still
4:53get the drama of that 17 ft ceiling.
4:56We're just no longer allowing it to bear
4:58down on the space to create it. Nicholas
5:00wanted the room dark and cozy, so
5:01naturally, one of the first decisions
5:04was to go considerably deeper with the
5:06walls. Painting a large room black does
5:08not automatically make it inviting. And
5:10some would argue that it never makes it
5:12inviting. And if done incorrectly, you
5:14can create a large black void of life
5:17room. What we needed was dimension.
5:20That's why the surfaces begin changing
5:22even though the color doesn't change
5:23very much. Along the main seating wall,
5:26we introduced panel molding. As you move
5:28toward the television, that treatment
5:29shifts into vertical slats. Other areas
5:32are allowed to remain comparatively
5:34restrained. So rather than creating
5:36interest by continually introducing
5:38another color, we're allowing one dark
5:41color family to behave differently
5:43depending on where you look. Light
5:44catches the edge of the molding. Shadow
5:46settles into the smooth portions of the
5:48wall. The vertical slats create rhythm
5:50and depth. And suddenly these dark
5:53surfaces don't feel flat anymore. I
5:55think that's particularly useful when
5:57you're working with a palette like this
5:59because the less you rely on color
6:00contrast, the more important the other
6:02kinds of contrast become. texture and
6:05relief start to matter. So does the
6:06difference between wood and fabric,
6:08smooth surfaces and irregular ones,
6:11illuminated areas and shadow. That's
6:13where much of the richness in this room
6:15is stemming from. Nicholas specifically
6:18asked for a goodsized television, a very
6:20common request. But once the television
6:22gets this large, you inherit another
6:25design problem. How do you keep it from
6:27becoming the entire room? If we simply
6:29mounted a giant black rectangle onto an
6:32otherwise decorative wall, your eye
6:34probably would go directly to it every
6:36time you entered. So rather than trying
6:38to disguise the television, we gave it
6:40something larger to belong to. The
6:42vertical slats establish a deep backdrop
6:44behind the screen, which becomes
6:46especially useful when the television is
6:48off because there isn't nearly as much
6:50contrast between the two. Then we
6:52interrupted all of those vertical lines
6:54with longer horizontal elements. There's
6:56the floating walnut console underneath
6:58and a wood shelving unit above that that
7:00gives us a place for an arrangement of
7:02artwork and greenery. Once the sun goes
7:05down, accent lighting begins revealing
7:06the texture behind everything. The
7:08television is still prominent. We're not
7:11pretending it isn't there, and there's
7:12no question about what this part of the
7:14room is used for. But now you read the
7:16entire wall as a composition rather than
7:18seeing nothing but a screen. The walnut
7:21is also important for another reason.
7:23Without those warmer interruptions, this
7:25could very easily become one monotonous
7:28black surface. The wood gives your eye
7:30somewhere else to land and at the same
7:32time connects this wall back to the rest
7:34of the room. Then we had Nicholas's
7:36other concern. This wall, the one which
7:39is now behind the sofa. He didn't want
7:41us to just find something to hang there.
7:43The problem was that the wall itself
7:45felt vacant. And there's a temptation
7:47with a surface this large to assume the
7:50answer is more. more artwork, more
7:52objects, more decoration. But if we had
7:54scattered a collection of smaller pieces
7:57across this wall, it probably would have
7:59exaggerated the size of the wall even
8:01more. So, we went in the other
8:03direction. Bigger items, but fewer of
8:05them. The panel molding gives the wall
8:07architectural presence first. Then, one
8:10oversized drawing is placed in the
8:12center, framed by a pair of sconces with
8:14Nicholas's sofa anchoring the whole
8:16setup below. The side tables and lamps
8:18finish it, and that's enough. A wall
8:20this large doesn't need 15 objects when
8:23the few things you place on it are
8:25properly scaled. Whenever a client has a
8:27piece of furniture that needs to remain,
8:29it's easy to think of it as something
8:30you're going to have to design around.
8:33In this case, the dark gray sofa fits
8:35right in. There's already quite a bit of
8:36warmth coming from the wood and the
8:38leather. You see it in the flooring, the
8:40beams overhead, the walnut furniture,
8:42and all of that conac upholstery. Had we
8:45continued in that direction with the
8:47sofa as well, the room could have
8:49started drifting toward a lodge or more
8:51traditional club room aesthetic. Not
8:53bad, just different. The charcoal breaks
8:56that pattern. It relates naturally to
8:58the darker architecture around it, but
8:59the fabric of the sofa also gives us
9:01something softer against all of the wood
9:04and leather. There's no need to turn the
9:05sofa into a statement. A few dark
9:07pillows paired with a plaid pillow and a
9:09textured throw blanket was plenty. It
9:12doesn't demand much attention, but it
9:13still looks as though it was thought
9:15through. Nicholas told us from the
9:17beginning that he likes a room with
9:19plenty of seating. That sounds easy
9:21enough until you remember that we're
9:23working inside a 16 by19 ft living area,
9:26and people need to move comfortably
9:27between the room and an open kitchen.
9:30So, instead of lining the perimeter with
9:31collection of smaller chairs, we
9:33concentrated the furniture into a proper
9:36conversation area. The sofa anchors one
9:38side. Cognac leather seating gathers
9:40around it and the whole arrangement
9:41settles onto an oversized rug around a
9:44substantial square coffee table. The
9:46important thing here is the weight of
9:48those pieces. If you put delicate
9:51once-in-a-hile chairs beneath a 17 ft
9:53ceiling, they can begin to look like
9:55toddler play furniture. The architecture
9:58overwhelms them. These chairs don't have
10:00that problem. Neither does the coffee
10:01table. Even the smaller tables have
10:03enough presence to hold their own
10:05against the scale surrounding them.
10:07That's what finally gives the lower
10:08portion of this room an anchor. Instead
10:10of the furniture looking as though it
10:12has been dropped into the bottom of a
10:13warehouse, it begins establishing more
10:15human scale within all that volume. The
10:18cognac leather has a role in all of this
10:20as well. Against deep, dark walls, this
10:23color takes on a richness that it simply
10:25wouldn't have against a pale background.
10:28But I wouldn't want the leather to look
10:29perfectly smooth or untouched. The
10:31variation is part of its personality.
10:34There's patina. It brings a little age
10:36into a room where quite a bit of the
10:37architectural work is new. And that
10:39keeps everything from feeling too
10:41pristine. This is another way modern
10:44heritage can find its way into a newer
10:46home. The architecture itself doesn't
10:47have to be old. You just need enough
10:49evidence of age somewhere in the room
10:52that it doesn't look as though every
10:54object was delivered off the truck on
10:56the same afternoon. The rug is probably
10:59doing more work here than most people
11:01would initially give it credit for.
11:03Remember, there isn't a wall separating
11:05this living area from the kitchen. So,
11:07if the architecture isn't fully telling
11:09you where the living room begins and
11:11ends, something else has to. Now, the
11:13paint does a little bit of that on the
11:15outskirts. It's like the outer shell of
11:16a Tootsie Pop. You're about three licks
11:19in at that point, but the rug is Mr.
11:21Owl. You've bitten down and found the
11:23center. If you don't know that
11:24reference, look up the famous
11:26commercial, How Many Licks by Tootsie
11:28Roll Industries. It was the longest
11:30running television commercial in US
11:32history, first airing in 1969 and
11:35running well into the 2000s. The seating
11:37gathers around the perimeter of the rug.
11:39The coffee table pins the middle like a
11:41button, which is a gesture that creates
11:42a room within a larger room. We could
11:44have used a heavily patterned Persian
11:46rug here and stylistically it would have
11:48made sense. But it also would have
11:50pushed the room another step toward that
11:52oldworld gentleman's club aesthetic. We
11:55already have hints of that character. We
11:57didn't need to keep proving it. This rug
11:59gives us texture and enough variation to
12:01hold the seating together without
12:02becoming another focal point. Then the
12:05coffee table brings the wood back into
12:07the center of the arrangement. And
12:08that's something you'll see repeatedly
12:10in this room. Very few materials appear
12:13once and disappear. They return
12:15somewhere else, sometimes in a different
12:17form, and that repetition is a part of
12:19what makes a decently layered room still
12:21feel coherent. Another challenge came
12:24from something we weren't designing, the
12:26kitchen. Our scope was the living room,
12:28but these two spaces are essentially
12:30continuous. There isn't a doorway
12:32separating them or a perfect cut off
12:34where you can simply stop one idea and
12:37begin another. So whatever we did in
12:39here couldn't be considered in
12:41isolation. Nicholas wanted the living
12:42room considerably darker, cozier, and
12:45more intimate. While the kitchen was
12:47already a much lighter space, we needed
12:49to give the living room that identity
12:51without making it feel as though it
12:52belonged to a completely different
12:54house. And I think this is where the
12:56contrast starts working in our favor. As
12:58you move from the kitchen into the
13:00living room, there's a noticeable shift
13:02in atmosphere. The pallet deepens, the
13:04materials become richer, and the space
13:06begins to feel more enclosed. But
13:08there's still communication between the
13:10two. The wood tones in the living room
13:12relate naturally to what was already
13:14present nearby, meaning they share some
13:16of the same undertones as the kitchen,
13:18and we didn't introduce anything so
13:20stylistically specific that the
13:22transition suddenly feels forced. Then,
13:25when you're sitting in the finished
13:26living room, the floor plan allows
13:28something interesting to happen. That
13:30lighter kitchen remains visible in the
13:32distance against the darker foreground
13:35of the living area. The kitchen gives
13:37your eye somewhere to travel like a
13:39beacon in the distance and adds depth
13:41beyond the seating area. So rather than
13:43fighting the fact that these adjoining
13:45spaces look different, we allowed each
13:47one to maintain its own identity.
13:49There's a useful note to remember there
13:51that connected rooms don't always have
13:52to look identical, especially when
13:54you're only redesigning one of them. The
13:57goal is to make the new space feel
13:59distinctly its own without losing its
14:01relationship to what was already there.
14:04Once you decide to make a room this
14:06dark, the lighting becomes considerably
14:08more important. If we flooded the whole
14:10space with bright uniform illumination,
14:12much of the atmosphere we're trying to
14:14create would disappear immediately. So
14:16rather than asking one fixture to light
14:18the entire area, the light comes from
14:20different places and at different
14:22heights depending on what it needs to
14:24do. The chandelier gives us the large
14:26sculptural addition overhead. Recessed
14:29lighting handles the functional work
14:30when it's needed. The architectural
14:32drawing gets sconces. Lamps bring the
14:35light down closer to where people are
14:37actually sitting. And concealed lighting
14:39reveals the texture around the
14:40television. The result is that you don't
14:42get one blanket of light over the entire
14:45room. You get pockets of it. The idea is
14:47that the room will become especially
14:49interesting in the evening because those
14:50similar sources begin revealing
14:53different parts of the design. The
14:54sconces graze across the panel molding
14:57and expose details that might otherwise
14:59disappear into the dark wall. Concealed
15:01light catches the depth of the vertical
15:03slats. Lamps illuminate the wood and
15:05leather around the seating. Then you
15:07look overhead and find this chandelier.
15:09It's not rustic, and I like that because
15:11it's not predictable. It's angular,
15:13black, and fairly modern against timber
15:16beams and tongue and groove boards. That
15:18gives us a little tension between old
15:20and new. At first glance, it seems
15:22there's a fair amount of layering here.
15:24But when you start breaking down what's
15:26in it, you see the material vocabulary
15:28is rather disciplined. Most of what
15:30you're seeing comes back to the same few
15:32ideas. Near black architectural
15:34surfaces, walnut and other warm woods,
15:37cognac leather, charcoal upholstery, and
15:39the original dark flooring. Above all of
15:41that is a lighter ceiling and then
15:43smaller amounts of aged metal and amber
15:45light bring warmth into the darker
15:46areas. That's the pallet. The richness
15:49comes from the repetition rather than
15:50constantly introducing something new.
15:52The walnut at the television wall
15:54relates to the coffee and side tables.
15:56And all of those woods speak back to the
15:59beams overhead. Cognac leather returns
16:01throughout the seating. The charcoal
16:02sofa belongs naturally against the
16:05darker walls, while the black chandelier
16:07echoes the architecture without
16:09disappearing into it. That's how you can
16:11give someone plenty to look at without
16:13filling the room with unrelated ideas.
16:16The materials become like a familiar
16:18face while scanning the crowd. You've
16:20seen them before. The windows, we can't
16:22forget about the windows. They needed to
16:24participate in the room. Also, had we
16:26left them surrounded by lighter walls
16:28and pale treatments, they would have
16:30become these bright interruptions
16:32cutting through an otherwise enveloping
16:34interior. Instead, the darker treatment
16:37continues around the openings, and the
16:38curtains run full length, so they have
16:40enough visual presence for the height of
16:42the room. During the day, the view
16:44outside gives you all the contrast you
16:46need. At night, the curtains close and
16:48the windows begin to recede. They stop
16:50feeling like holes punched into the dark
16:52walls and become part of the room
16:54itself. We were somewhat restrained with
16:57the decoration in here, which can at
16:59times be difficult for people in a room
17:01this large. Empty surfaces have a way of
17:04making you think that they need
17:05something. You see an open area and
17:07start looking for another picture,
17:08another object, maybe another shelf. But
17:11scale doesn't always require quantity.
17:13Sometimes the answer is fewer decisions
17:16made at a larger scale. The oversized
17:19drawing holds its own against the
17:20paneling, and the ceiling height without
17:22needing a collection of smaller pieces
17:24around it. The television wall is
17:26allowed to be quieter because the added
17:28architecture is already giving us plenty
17:30to look at. Then you have the plants
17:32softening some of the harder lines with
17:34books and smaller objects appearing
17:35where they feel natural. I do want to
17:37point something out because it relates
17:39to nearly all designs. Some of these
17:42items, especially the smaller decor
17:44items, can serve as placeholders for the
17:47sake of completing the room. Nicholas
17:48could have items which mean something to
17:50him that he would like displayed. He
17:52might replace one of the table or shelf
17:54plants with that item. As long as
17:56placement, scale, and proportion are all
17:59relatively the same as the placeholder
18:01object, it should work fine. Comparing
18:04the original room with where we started,
18:06almost everything that structurally made
18:07the room difficult is still here. We
18:09didn't go on a parade of demolition or
18:12construction in order to resolve
18:13anything. We've modified them to be
18:15experienced differently. Before, looking
18:18up at the vast ceiling could make you
18:20feel like you were entering a stouper.
18:22Now it's a huge contributor to the
18:23character and boundaries of the room.
18:26The monstrous wall felt like a problem
18:28waiting to be filled. Now it's one of
18:29the focal points, and it didn't take a
18:31100 objects to get it there. The open
18:33kitchen is now able to change roles.
18:35What once added to the lack of
18:37definition now gives us a lighter area
18:39in the distance, creating destination
18:41beyond the darker living room. And the
18:43sofa we initially needed to retain
18:45became useful in a way we might not have
18:47anticipated. That charcoal upholstery is
18:49what keeps all of this leather and wood
18:51from becoming too repetitive. Nicholas
18:53also got the amount of seating he wanted
18:55without the room feeling crowded. You've
18:57likely already picked up on this, but
18:59I'm going to reinforce the principle
19:00anyway. You can take a room and paint
19:03every wall black, charcoal, dark navy,
19:06dark burgundy, what have you, tomorrow,
19:08it still wouldn't feel like this because
19:10the darkness was never really the
19:12design. It gave us the background. The
19:14transformation came from what happens
19:16against it, the texture in the walls,
19:18the warmth and the repetition of the
19:20materials, the presence of scale
19:22overhead, and the way that smaller
19:23pockets of light pull your attention
19:25back toward the people and furniture
19:27below. All of the volume and space of
19:30the room finally has somewhere within it
19:32that encourages gathering. The room is
19:34still grand. It just no longer feels
19:37empty. If you like the video, hit the
19:39thumbs up. If you'd like to stick around
19:40a while, feel free to subscribe. See you
19:43in the next one.

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