This is an email question and answer exchange from a design query sent to Mark. Please feel free to send in your own interior design questions (with images) to Mark Lewison.

Dear Mark,

My parents own a house built in the 1920s which they remodeled/added onto in the early 90s. The old kitchen became a family room and a whole dining room and new kitchen are at the back of the house. Most rooms grew into their new personas, with the exception of one.

The old dining room (which it can hardly be called anyway) is now a large space looking for a purpose. The front door opens into our front living room (couch, chair, bookshelf, TV) then through 2 columns and a wide entry way is the problem room. On the right it has 5 doors on 3 of the walls and on the left is a large wall of windows. The room currently houses the computer desk, an old rocking chair, and an antique sewing machine. It acts more as a hallway than a room.

I guess our major problem has been deciding a purpose for the room (that’s not a sitting/living room since we have two flanking it) and how to compete with all the doors covering the walls and foot traffic.

Thanks!

Megan

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Hi Megan,

You might be very surprised to find out how common this problem really is! I personally have worked on 4 homes that are of the 1920’s Bungalow style (very common here in Los Angeles) that have been added on to over the years, making the dining room nothing better than a giant hallway. So, I say…make it a Giant hallway…albeit a fabulous one! By this, I mean that I’ve used entrance foyers and hallways as galleries, piano areas or to create an interior atrium of sorts (with the correct lighting…you can achieve an outdoor look…almost like a courtyard). This is all fine and dandy as long as you don’t need the room for a television area or family/living room. Circulation areas in homes have been forgotten and designed out over the years. By this, I mean, only in recent years (Post 1940) have homes not had transition areas from one room to the next, as in a vestibule, hallway, nook.

To create a “Bonus” area that acts as nothing more than a beautiful gallery for photos while creting a transition from one area to another, adds to the genteel quality of a home from the 1920’s. What I always say too, this is one area that can be your “Folly”…paint it very differently than your other rooms.

Hope that this helps.

Mark