UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
Due to one of our housemates now not retrning tothe house, and our landlady being very doubtful that we will manage to get a new housemate as most people have found houses, we are now left with an empty room, at the front of the house.

We dont have a living reoom, or a communal room, instead we mainly end up in one of the bedrooms. This makes the persons room get messy and its a bit of a pain in the arse really.

So we want to turn the empty room into the living room, so that we have somewhere to entertain guests and to relax in.

The roblem is that it is quite plain. In fact...its really boring.

At the moment, there is a bed, a wardrobe and a desk in there. A big pece of patterned material hanging down above the bed, a poster onteh back of the door and a 48" UV blacklight.

We are stuck for ideas how to turn it into a proper room. We need a coffee table and some form of audio/ visual entertainment. We are going to use the bed as a sofa we think.

Apart form that we have no ideas how to make it a nice room.

Which is where you come in.

Any ideas?

frown

NOnactivist for HoPper liberation.
1,643 posts
Location: ffidrac


Posted:
shove the bed against a wall so the sofa has a back to it. and find some cushions for extra comfiness... get someone to donate their tv/stereo to the cause - from whoever's room you usually end up in i guess... or everybody chip in and buy a joint one, you may be able to get a decent enough tv second hand...

I wonder whether you could maybe use the wardrobe as a sort of coffee table -although obviously would not work if it's a fitted wardrobe or simply too huge... Coffee tables are easy enough to construct though, you just need a flat board/sheet of perspex and something interesting but fairly sturdy to prop it up with - could be anything, bits of wood, stones, i think there was one on tv that was just a load of cheap glasses on the floor with a great big slab of glass on top of that... - get scouring some junk shops and get creative.

uv blacklight sounds fun, i'd be sorely tempted to get some flourescent paint and go mad on the walls, but that may only be fun for a short time... I decorated my uni room by hanging up fabric on the walls with drawing pins - patterned sarongs or if you want to go minimalist, plain cheap calico which you can get for as little as about 3 quid a metre, and you could maybe dye that too if you wanted...

I reckon the best way to get a nice living room though is to try living in it and see how it 'evolves', eventually you'll end up with all sorts of bits and piece from everybody's rooms and it'll look more interesting.

not the most innovative ideas but i think you'll do much better by just getting in there with your housemates and changing things

Aurinko freedom agreement reached 10th Sept 2006

if it makes no sense that's because it's NOn-sense.


nearly_all_goneSILVER Member
Pooh-Bah
1,626 posts
Location: Southampton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Yeah, do all the above.

A TV will pretty much turn any room into a living room, particularly if there's enough of you to get cable.

Definatley keep the bed so people can crash on it, but loads of cushions are a must because big flat things can become a pain in the arse to sit on if you're there for any period of time.

Make it unique, but not too nice or you'll never get rid of all your mates (a mistake, it has to be said, fairly easily rectified with the introduction of a few weeks' filth)

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau


CharlesBRONZE Member
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand


Posted:
Fill it with balloons!

HoP Posting Guidelines
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* Is it Fair to all concerned?
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UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
We shall wait for the Bovril Mon-eky to arrive for that to happen.

I was very dissappointed he never made his balloon porn star for you.

smile

MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
Oh lordy you have a GREAT start!

Ok, first get some cushions and put them on the bed against and along the wall to make your sofa. I'm assuming you're smart enough to have figured that out yourself. :-p

Get some beanbags. Toss them in the room. They're lovely. Take the patterned material and hang it over the window if there aren't already some decent curtains.

Now, the black light is a delightful idea. It would be complimented nicely by some UV-reactive posters. You could even make some goa-style string art if you had the drive to.

Add that, maybe a hookah and a lava lamp and you're good to go.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
We have UV string art.

The badger with a troubled past and Sugarplum made it for our house warming party thing. Its in the corner of the room. There is a bean bag.
There is a Tv socket.

There are some WWII black out curtains. Theymake the room TOTALLY dark. They are brilliant!

TheBovrilMonkeySILVER Member
Liquid Cow
2,629 posts
Location: High Wycombe, England


Posted:
Just watch out if you put the mattress up against the wall.

I did that in my student house and it was left there for the whole year. There was black stuff growing on the wall behind it when we finally moved it. smile

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
if u wanna get rid of the uv light i'll have it smile

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
Written by: Unsaturated Carpets Of Freedom


There are some WWII black out curtains. Theymake the room TOTALLY dark. They are brilliant!




I had a curtain like that once when I was in college! I loved it! You drew it and the room went DARK. At high noon you couldn't see your hand in front of your face they made the room so dark.

I will DEFINATELY have a windowblind like that in my room next year. Enough of this business of sleeping with an eyeshade!

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


GothFrogetteBRONZE Member
grumpy poorly froggy
3,999 posts
Location: Nuneaton, United Kingdom


Posted:
you can buy the black out fabric at about £1.99 p.m.
go skip hunting and use your finds to make really interesting pieces of furniture... cable reals as tables etc...these can also go to huge sizes... knits of the round table size and are fun to roll back to the house too, they also look pretty good stook to the cealing all different sizes. also trees you can never have enough trees, i was walking through our local woods and cam across a tree that had been there for some time so i brought it back to my house with the aid of a friend as it was 10 feet long. i had it before the kids burnt it. there are loads of things you could use that are free

Life's too short to worry about where you put your marshmallows



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