Here' s how to create a more comfortable lounge area
The couch is the new command center. We’re watching more TV, doing more puzzles, reading more news. Getting creative with furniture and layout helps you maintain harmony, even with competing interests. Amber Day Problem: Table buried in laptops Your college kids claimed the formal dining room as their online lecture hall and video game parlor. Great-Grandma's noisy old Singer competes irritatingly with Netflix binges. All you want to do is finish that blasted jigsaw puzzle. With multiple generations under one roof, turf wars often break out in common spaces. Amber Day
$ Budget
Sound off. “At a time when we're hyperaware of spatial boundaries and being on top of each other, sound dampening reduces tension,” Jonathan says. Oversized area rugs on tile or bare hardwood or a tapestry on a wall “minimize the little clanks and jangles or louder voices that, in quarantine, can become major annoyances.” Your puzzle solution: “A large Coroplast whiteboard as a base lets you move it from room to room, so you can puzzle in peace,” Drew says.
$$ Midrange
With more people in the house, the secret to harmony is “flex space,” Drew says. A dining room can do double duty with a desk surface that flips down from a hutch or console, he notes. Likewise, multifunction furniture pieces — a dining table (or even an ottoman) with hidden laptop storage or nesting surfaces that stack and hide away — let you “adjust a room depending on how it's being used."
$$$ Splurge
Double your hangout space by upgrading an unfinished garage or basement. On a recent episode of Celebrity IOU, the brothers helped Brad Pitt give the actor's makeup artist of 30 years the surprise renovation of her life by turning a 400-square-foot garage into a guest suite with marble-look island kitchenette, pop-up makeup station and bookshelves that swing open to hidden storage cabinets.
Renovation Ideas for Every Budget
Cancel You are leaving AARP.org and going to the website of our trusted provider. The provider’s terms, conditions and policies apply. Please return to AARP.org to learn more about other benefits. Your email address is now confirmed. You'll start receiving the latest news, benefits, events, and programs related to AARP's mission to empower people to choose how they live as they age. You can also by updating your account at anytime. You will be asked to register or log in. Cancel Offer Details Disclosures
Close In the next 24 hours, you will receive an email to confirm your subscription to receive emails related to AARP volunteering. Once you confirm that subscription, you will regularly receive communications related to AARP volunteering. In the meantime, please feel free to search for ways to make a difference in your community at Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again.