Smart Design for Dual-Purpose Rooms

The final touch? Lighting. Adequate (and adaptable) lighting for each activity in a multipurpose room is essential. What’s more, lighting zones help differentiate spaces — in an all-in-one great room, for instance, the cooking, dining, work and relaxation areas should all have independent illumination in the form of overhead and accent lighting, plus task lighting where you need it. Put lights on dimmers so that you have strong illumination in, say, a dining room-cum-home office when it’s in work mode, and soft lighting for a romantic dinner. Add task lighting, too, in the form of table or wall-mounted lamps. In the interest of consistency, though, "Use an attractive lamp with a fabric shade instead of a metal desk lamp that looks like it came straight out of an office cubicle," says Linda Weber of San Francisco, who often outfits mixed-use rooms for her business, Patina Home Staging & Design. Or, to save space, install focused recessed lighting in the ceiling, or add under-cabinet lights to a shelf or cupboard mounted above the work zone. After all, you don’t want to leave your beautiful, efficient and luxuriously livable new dual-purpose space in the dark, do you?