This living room is in Truberry Custom Homes’ contribution to the 2012 BIA Parade of Homes in the Meadows at Lewis Center. The builder went all-out with the house, which served as the Parade’s Foundation Home:
Highlights
- The west wall of the room is covered entirely by built-ins. Most of the built-ins here are shelves, but take note also of the center space, here anchored by a flat-screen TV.
- The 5-foot contemporary linear wide-view fireplace sports stone surround. It’s one of two fireplaces in the house; while the other, in the hearth room, has the more traditional fireplace look, this one has a unique and unconventional look.
- Keeping with the mid-century design theme of the 2012 Parade, the floor is made from manufactured reclaimed hardwood. That flooring style continues through the entire first floor.
- Built-in wine racks line the top of the wall as well as the north side of it, earning the living room a secondary moniker of “wine room.” For easier access to the top-shelf bottles, Truberry installed a library-style sliding ladder.
This bright and eye-catching great room is part of Bob Webb Group’s house in the 2013 BIA Parade of Homes at Jerome Village. Open space was a major theme in the 5,509-square-foot house.
Highlights
- Built-ins aplenty line the wall, including shelves (some of them lit up), cabinets, bookcases, DVD storage, a fireplace and space for a flat-screen TV, which could have been placed anywhere in the design. All the woodwork in the shelves comes from Bob Webb’s in-house cabinet shop, and the fire box is much larger than usual, coming in at 45 inches as compared to the more conventional 30.
- The 10-foot ceiling gives the room a more open feel than would a typical 9-foot ceiling. The crown on the built-in shelves is tied into the ceiling, as is the backsplash in the attached kitchen.
- A separate cabinet to the side offers storage cabinets and glass-windowed display area. As with the wall of built-ins, the woodwork is custom, and though it’s used here mainly for display, the unit could have just as easily served as a dry bar.
- The 5-inch hardwood floor, which runs from the kitchen all the way to the family room, is designed to stand out; a more standard 3.5-inch floor in a room this size would show a lot of bores. An engineered silent flooring design uses flat heads to avoid sagging, eliminating creaks and squeaks.
A closer look at living rooms and their cousins, great rooms
