Southern Enterprises Stainless Steel Wall Mount Fireplace

February is almost here! The shortest month of the year is also one of the coldest. Plus it’s also time for the most romantic day of the year: Valentine’s Day. What could be a better time of year to purchase a new fireplace for your home?

Southern Enterprises Portable Indoor Outdoor Fireplace

Installing a fireplace no longer needs to be a complicated procedure. Try a gel fueled fireplace. These fireplaces have a real crackling flame but they also emit very little heat. They are ventless and do not require a power source which means they can be placed almost anywhere. It’s all up to you and your imagination.

Dimplex Fieldstone Freestanding Rustic Electric Fireplace

An electric fireplace is another great option. Electric fireplaces also offer versatility that regular fireplaces can’t. They can easily be put in places like condos or townhouses with little to no installation costs. Some of these types of fireplaces can even be wall-mounted or recessed into a wall for a floating look. These fireplaces offer more heat than gel-fueled varieties but not as much as gas.

Dimplex Cornet TV Stand with Electric Fireplace

These days even a fireplace can do double duty. Try picking one with built-in storage. Some fireplaces also offer a place to stand your flat-screen TV as well as built-in compartments for your components.

Dimplex Mini Cube Stove

It’s easy to heat up your home this February with a new fireplace.

TV Stands for Tidy Rooms

Look for a TV stand that supports the size and weight of your television, in a style that complements your current décor. But before you fall in love, check to make sure you have the available floor and wall space to accommodate this new piece of furniture.

You’ll want a depth that doesn’t reach too far into the central area of your living room. Also check that the edges of your furniture won’t block part of  a window or doorway.

When you find the right piece of furniture, assess the device and media storage. Do you need to also purchase audio racks or DVD racks? How about CD storage? If your living room is where you keep your stereo and listen to most of your music, you’ll be storing an extra large media library.

Find TV furniture (like the designs shown here from Martin Furniture’s Kathy Ireland Home collections) along with many other popular brands at Cymax.com.
 

Kathy Ireland Home by Martin Furniture Pasadena Wood Plasma TV Stand

Holiday Hosting with a Home Bar

Have you ever thought about adding a home bar – complete with comfy bar stools – to your living room, rec room, or basement media room? If you have childhood memories of parents, aunts and uncles, or family friends gathering around a home bar, the image isn’t too far from your mind when the festivities of fall and winter approach.

Make a more refined statement in your elegant dining room or traditional living room with leather bar stools. Create a more contemporary bar space anywhere in your home with a commercial bar height counter and sleek black extra tall bar stools. Today’s home bars and bar stools can fit any budget or lifestyle.

Coaster Hyde Contemporary Home Bar

Coaster Lambert Leather Back Swivel Bar Stool

Coaster Buckner Casual Style Home Bar

Coaster Dixie Upholstered Swivel Bar Stool

Take a look at these pieces from Catnapper to spark your imagination. We’ve blogged about these opulent plush sofas and chairs before, but they’re well worth revisiting for anyone seeking soft, luxurious furnishings.

Start with a recliner or rocker and add more pieces to fit your space and style. From one decadent chair to a long lavish L-shaped sofa set, you can add a little or a lot of Catnapper comfort to your favorite living space.

Catnapper Softie Dual Reclining Loveseat

Catnapper Softie Sofa Set

Catnapper Softie 3 Piece Reclining Sectional

Recliner chairs take those moments to the next level, making your time to rejuvenate that much more soothing. The right recliner makes those moments last longer, rewarding your hard work with well-earned comfort.

Catnapper Softie Oversized Reclining Chaise

Known for their luxurious oversized plush furniture, Catnapper recliners are definitely worth a look. Manufactured by Jackson Furniture, these products range from impressive sectionals and sofa sets to distinctive chaise and extra-roomy armchair designs. We love their Softie line for the quilted pillow-top design that begs to be lounged in.

Catnapper also produces more refined looks, ideal for a traditional home. Look at the leather recliners, sofas, loveseats, and chairs in their Sonoma or Buckingham collections.

Catnapper Buckingham Dual Reclining Leather Loveseat

Catnapper Sonoma Reclining Leather Loveseat in Sable

Kush Furniture Summerland Double Curio

Choose from a surprisingly diverse selection of corner curio cabinets with built-in lighting and you’ll have a prominent place for all those small collectibles you want to draw attention to.

Pulaski Golden Oak II 72″ Corner Curio Cabinet

Add a wall-mounted curio cabinet to an urban apartment or other tight spot where floor space is already spoken for. A smaller wall-mounted cabinet is also a great supplement to other wood finish curio cabinets.

Butler Specialty Wall Curio in Plantation Cherry Finish

Games Room Location and Purpose

When considering what type of lighting would be best for your games room, take into account its location and purpose. A basement games room will most likely need more light fixtures than one in the corner of a family room. If your new pool table has pride of place in the middle of the room, then you’re sure to want a game table light centered directly above it.

The Different Types of Lighting

Because the games room will be used for a variety of activities, the light fixtures you choose should accommodate these different lighting needs. A multipurpose room like a games room should include two or more of the different kinds of light fixtures available.

Task lighting is generally bright and used to put the spotlight on your game table, pool, poker or otherwise. It is also a great way to light your home bar. Track lighting is a type of task lighting that popular in games room.

General or ambient lighting is some type of overhead light, like a flush mounted fixture centered in the rooms ceiling. It fills the space with a medium to bright light that softens shadows and creates a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

Tiffany pendant lighting is particularly popular for a traditional style games room that features a pool or billiards table.

Recessed lighting with a dimmer switch would be ideal for a games room that has a video gaming or home theater area.

Customizing your lighting needs to the various activities in your games room, is not only practical but it adds warmth and appeal to room’s décor.

Divide and Conquer

Divide your game room design project into stages. Trying to do it all at once can be overwhelming especially if it’s going to be used for more than one kind of game. Assign priorities. When assigning priorities, a good decorating rule to keep in mind is what is important to you? The dart board and home bar might be the first thing you work on. Then again if you want friends over to test out your new pool table to see if it works, setting it up to your satisfaction will your main concern.

Accessorizing Your Games Room

If the room is designed to house a regulation-size pool table, then two or three billiards-theme spectator height bar stools would fit right in. Or if it’s setup for gamers, don’t forget to include a couple of high-tech game chairs. Select game room accessories, such as lamps, neon clocks, signs or framed posters that reflect your décor theme, if you have chosen one.

Popular game room accessories can include:

• Juke box
• Neon clocks
• Neon signs
• Framed posters
• Themed floor and ceiling lights
• Popcorn machine
• Gum ball machine
• Vintage coke machine
• Pool cue racks

Other Things to Consider when Decorating a Games Room

Do a reconnaissance of the room’s power sources. These will come in handy if your home bar has a fridge, you want all the gadgets in your video games area to work and any other electronic games like arcade and pinball games.

If your dartboard is of the standard variety, place it in a cabinet. This will protect your walls and save you from have to repair and repaint them on a regular basis. Keep in mind, however, that it will take up more room than just hanging the dart board by itself.

Add a magnetic white board as an easy way to keep score, leave messages, etc.

Carpet is ideal for absorbing sound but if you’re concerned about potential spills maybe tile or hardwood’s better.

Especially if you will not be including a home bar, consider what appliances, if any, you would like in the games room. A bar fridge or mini fridge, coffee maker, water cooler or microwave will save you and your guests a few trips to the kitchen.

Come back next Friday for the last part of this series, “Designing a Games Room”.

Step 1 – Purpose

Decide what the main purpose of the room is going to be. Is the room going to be used for one type of game, such as pool, foosball, shuffleboard or poker? Or do you want a space that, while the billiards table will be the centerpiece of the room, you would like to include a darts board and someplace to play chess for those that don’t?

Step 2 – Space & Location

Roughly determine how much space you will need and where the games room is to be located. A pool table or billiards table is going to take up more room than an arcade cabinet. It’s not just size and dimensions you have to worry about; don’t forget to make allowances for people playing the games and moving around the room. Before ordering the pool table of your dreams (and any other large pieces of furniture you plan buying for your game room), make sure that it will fit through doorways and be able to maneuver down or up stairs.

Step 3 – Game Room Furniture

Would you like to include a home bar, someplace for spectators to sit while they watch the players or a video games area complete with game chairs and an entertainment center? Make a list of all the furniture pieces you would like in the room. Some popular game room furniture pieces are:

• Pool table
• Arcade games
• Dart board
• Foosball table
• Poker table
• Home bar – including a pub table, bar stools and/or spectator stools

Step 4 – It’s all about the Money

Make a budget. Knowing how much you have and/or are prepared to spend will help you focus on priorities. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have everything on your games room furniture list, but it might inspire you to look for bargains in order to tailor what you want to what you have to spend.

Step 5 – Should You or Shouldn’t You?

DIY or should you hire someone to do the work for you? If you want the trendy pendant ceiling light with stained glass shade to be perfectly centered over your pool table but you’re not quite sure how to do that, then it’s best to plan on hiring someone who does. Ditto for plumbing your home bar sink or mounting your flat screen TV complete with sound system. Do the walls have to be insulated or the floor reinforced to bear the weight of the pool table? Include the expense of a contractor or trades person in your budget.

A games room is a multifunctional space that will prove hours of fun and quality time, if it is designed with a little something for everyone in mind. Come back next Friday for Designing a Games Room pt. 2.

Fitness Room Location and Purpose

Will your home gym have its own room or is it going to be part of the rec room in the basement or the family room off the kitchen? The location and size of your fitness room might dictate the number of pieces of fitness equipment you end up buying.

Who will be using the home gym? If it’s just you and all you want is somewhere to workout with weights and then jump on the exercise bike or the treadmill for 15 to 30 minutes, then perhaps a corner of the basement room will work for you. However, if your exercise regime is intended for the whole family and will be centered around fitness games and a game system, perhaps all you will need to do is ensure that you have enough free floor space in your family room.

Prepping your Home Gym

Whether it’s in a dedicated room or part of another room, you will want your home gym space to be as conducive to your workout regime as possible.

The floor will play an important role in your fitness room. Since most basement floors are made of concrete and a not especially kind to joints, when the home gym is located in the basement, consider ways to lessen the impact. Adding a layer of rubber matting or extra padding to area carpet is one way or you can select products like cork flooring which acts as a natural “shock absorber.”

Especially if you will using the television as part of your workout, you don’t want the lighting to be so bright that it causes glare. On the other hand, you don’t want it too dark that you can’t see easily what you are doing. The ideal type of lighting in your exercise room is a balanced mix of overhead (general) and task (specific) lighting fixtures.

If you’re working with free weights, a mirror would come in handy for helping you see if you’re doing the proper technique.

Choosing the Right Exercise Equipment

Once you know where your fitness room is going to go and who will predominately be using it, it’s time to take inventory of what you currently have, what new pieces of exercise equipment you will need and which ones, if any, you’ve outgrown or can’t be repaired.

If you don’t have much room for your home gym, don’t despair; most types of exercise equipment are available in space-saver models.