- 1). Move your furniture so it isn’t all lined up with its backs to the walls of the room. For example, turn your sofa so one arm is against the wall and the rest of it sticks out into the middle of the room. Then put end tables beside the arms and a coffee table in front. Add a couple of chairs for people to sit in facing the sofa, and you’ve created a nice conversation area. Use a rug under the coffee table to finish your "room within a room" look.
- 2). Think about what activities you do in this too-large room. If you listen to music and watch TV, and this is the room where your friends sit and talk, there are three activities which can be given separate areas. First create your conversation area like Step 1.
- 3). Hang sheer curtain panels behind the sofa and the chairs. Use thumbtacks or small finishing nails if you don’t plan on re-using the sheer curtains and nail them in place. If you’ll use the curtains again, hang them from the curtain rods suspended from cup hooks.
- 4). Set up your sound system in a corner of the room and close it off, using the sheers like a theater curtain. For a dramatic effect, pull them into a graceful drape and use thumb tacks to secure them to the wall.
- 5). Put your TV and favorite chair in another corner, with something to prop your feet on and a small table to hold snacks, the remote and a lamp. One activity per one area of the room means you don't feel like you're living in an airplane hangar anymore.
- 6). Got several people needing to do different things but all at the same time? Separate uses of the room and make it look smaller by using cardboard like sound baffles in a radio studio. The cardboard will separate the room visually and also help keep the noise from drifting over, whether someone is listening to music or watching TV or studying.
- 7). Cover those big pieces of cardboard with the wrapping paper (or even old magazine pictures if you have a stack of them). When the glue has dried, punch small holes along one side of each cardboard piece. Thread the clear fishing line through each hole in the cardboard and then tie the long loop to each cup hook fastened to the ceiling. Use the cardboard pieces like they were floating walls and put your furniture in front or on each side of them.
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