Functional Living Room

Interior designer Kristan Cunningham arrives to check out Futrell's mismatched apartment. She needs a better arrangement to work on her hobbies and wants her living room to be both modern and functional. As a renter she's not permitted to paint or remove the white blinds, so color must be brought in through other means. The window treatments need updating and her wobbly coffee table doesn't work well for her dining needs. Cunningham then meets with design coordinators Spencer Anderson and David Sheinkopf to discuss the issues and divvy up the projects. Anderson is put in charge of creating a sewing table that'll double for dining space and Sheinkopf volunteers to update the coffee table making it stylish, sturdy and large enough to use as an informal dining surface. Cunningham is responsible for bringing color into the room without painting the walls.

The design team completes their mission on the $1,000 budget--here's how they do it:

• To bring color into the room, Cunningham creates floor-to-ceiling wooden wall panels with sconces. The panels are set behind the sofa to break up the abundance of white space. The panels are created out of 24-inch pieces of luaun and 1x3 planks of pine. The pine planks are nailed onto the luaun side-by-side and a second row of planks is used to create a frame for additional dimension. Cunningham also sews floor-to-ceiling curtains to hide the vertical blinds and to bring color to the far end of the narrow space.