Square Room

Here's a shot of the living room. The 80's hit, "Square rooms" by Al Corey, comes to mind... A 6 feet suspended squarish TV console, built into a feature wall - simple design of stripes of glossy white laminate layered with thin steel trimmings and a light-coloured wood laminate in matt finish. Almost a "washed-out" look with no strong contrasting colours, but I know it will please the old folks while making the living room look good. Comes complete with 2 drawers and a frosted glass center console area for the DVDs and set-top boxes. Square PLC downlights flank both sides of the feature wall, and Yes, a squarish ceiling light to finish off the "square" theme.

3 months ago, I started looking for quotations and designs by saying I wanted something "contemporary, clean-cut and minimalist". When I started talking to contractors, and interior designers (IDs), I noticed that they didn't understand what I meant, or maybe I couldn't bring across what I wanted. So, I said "simple but nice". Yeah... sounds very boring, but I started getting them to go into the direction I wanted, so I continued with it.

I also agonized if I wanted a feature wall. You have those more complicated ones mirrors - in all combinations - clear mirrors, tinted mirrors, mirrors border the edges, or mirrors across the top. You also have those feature walls with a display area cut into the feature wall to make it look "cool". It all seemed that a suspended TV console was "in". At one point, I really wanted to just have some nice wall paper, and a very nice ready-made TV console instead. I've seen quite a few pre-fabricated TV consoles in fantastic gloss piano white finish, some with stainless steel finishes, etc. But I never found the right one to suit my requirement: "simple but nice". (Actually, it started out as "simple and elegant", but they couldn't get that right, so it was back to "simple and nice".)

So, eventually I settled for this design which was simple, and somewhat understated, but not so plain that you'd feel laminates were slapped on thoughtlessly. All I need now is a very nice black LED TV to punctuate the feature wall.

(Taken from the lyrics of Square Rooms...)
Just you and me
just you and me until the end of time.
Oh
oh
I know
I can see those. . . .
Oh
oh
square rooms
oh
oh
square rooms. ...
Oh
oh
square rooms
oh
oh
square rooms. ...
Oh
Oh
square rooms
oh
oh
square rooms. ...