By Heather
Want to effectively double the space in your home? Creating a multipurpose room in your house can be a great way to do it. With many of us spending more time than ever before in our homes thanks to Covid-19, it’s become more important than ever to transform our spaces into rooms that serve multiple purposes. It was even more important in Dream Home 7 because we had no idea who would buy the home and we needed to make sure it appealed to different buyers. Here are our best multipurpose room design ideas for you to consider when building your dream home.
WHAT’S A TRULY MULTIPURPOSE ROOM?
Put simply, it’s a room that serves more than one purpose. For us, in Dream Home 7, this meant not only focusing on how the room looked and felt but how it would serve it’s intended purposes.
Here were some of the boxes it needed to tick:
– A quiet place for adults to step away and talk in private
– A studio for the next Dave Grohl to practice his skills
– A media room for the gamers in the family
– The ultimate home theatre experience
Always ones to rise to the challenge, we set about combining the look of a formal lounge room with the convenience of a modern-day media room.
LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING
Now we know when you first look at this room all you see is ‘formal lounge room’. Great! That’s exactly what we were going for. Most of our home designs have a second living room closed away from the main kitchen-living-dining zone. A sanctuary to escape the noise and chaos of the bustling areas of the home or perhaps the perfect place to snuggle up with a good book (or movie) on a rainy day. Cue the Notebook.
We didn’t call this The Coastal Farmhouse for nothing. We wanted that style to carry right throughout the home so why would stop here. Just because we knew the room needed to be able to serve a few purposes. It didn’t mean it had to look like it didn’t belong in the home.
BY DAY
As much as we love open plan living, we know how important it can be to have a second living area too for moments like these…
…when great granny needs to step away from the loud and noisy kids in the main living area for a quick shuteye,
…maybe your cousin’s two-year-old who is visiting for lunch is well overdue for their afternoon nap,
…it’s school holidays, the kids’ friends have been running a muck all day and now they need some downtime in front of the tv,
…and don’t even get us started on family TV viewing wars.
In Dream Home 7 our truly multipurpose room was separated from the main living areas by the laundry and is enclosed by two feature doors. We knew if we wanted to help create a quiet sanctuary for these moments, we would need to prevent the sound transfer from this room to the others and vice versa. Otherwise, what’s the point!
Before the walls were sheeted, we had Fletcher’s Pink®Soundbreak™Insulation installed in the walls and ceilings. Insulation has its obvious benefits in heating and cooling the home which is one of the reasons we love building new homes. When it comes to insulation choice, we can’t go past the Soundbreak™. It really is the cream of the crop. Its higher density makes it ideal for reducing sound transfer between both internal and external walls and adjacent rooms giving you that escape room, I mean peace and quiet you long for. Whilst we used R2.7 in our multipurpose room, it is available in different R-values depending on your needs.
Then it was time to move onto the plasterboard. We used Siniat’s Opal Board. It’s the same thickness as standard 10mm plasterboard BUT it’s made using a high-density core and heavy-duty lining papers which means it’s up to six times less likely to experience impact damage compared to standard 10mm plasterboard. For this reason, we also like to use it in our hallways and main living zones…because kids will be kids.
But even better it has awesome acoustic properties that help reduce the sound transfer to other rooms. This becomes especially important for those times when someone has the latest Avengers movie or Sing Star on max volume. If you know, you know!
BY NIGHT
At night is when our truly multipurpose room really shines!
We didn’t just stop with the acoustic insulation and plasterboard. No, we went one step further and added Siniat’s Designpanel M2F profile on the ceiling. A creative stroke of genius I thought.
Sarah was worried when I daringly suggested using it but was stoked with the outcome. All those tiny holes in the plasterboard help create a true home cinema experience, don’t you agree? #popcornanyone
The Designpanel helps to increase sound absorption and control sound reverb which is a fancy way of saying how the sound gradually reduces as it reflects repeatedly off a surface or in this case the walls (think of it like an echo) #cooee
See we told you the next Dave Grohl* could be practising in here.
*Dave Grohl is the lead singer of the Foo Fighters. My husband is a massive fan, so he was the first musician that came to mind.
STYLING SELLS
In case you’re wondering where the TV is? Don’t worry we didn’t forget it. We had all the correct provisions put in place for a wall mounted TV but since we were styling to sell, we chose to hide them with artwork instead of a TV. The agent and potential buyers all knew they were there. The size of the room means it could suit a few different seating combo’s too. Not only that, the added bonus of the two sliding doors meant you could but a sofa bed in there and use it as a guest room. Now that truly is multipurpose.
Who else needs a multipurpose room in their house?
Let us know in the comments.
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