i'm standing in the living room of clients who love to entertain and it's a very very small space and it's sort of naturally a dark room as well this room literally was too small for regular furniture to put in a layout that made sense for entertaining this project was also done on a budget so we needed to spend the money in the right places to get the right impact and the right use of the space what was in this room before was a very large couch that could only seat three and the fireplace which was already clad with white tile i wanted to give these clients a really great space to entertain so the idea was to create a lounge like something you would find in a restaurant or in a bar something with low long seating that could seat more than six people i knew that the solution needed to be custom so i designed a tufted sectional banquette something that was long and low just deep enough for people to sink into but we didn't put any arms on it so that the piece could also be quite flexible i covered the sectional in a really warm gray to make a bit of a more cozy feel and then we chose a selection of wonderful fabrics with tones of corals and golds and taupes for a more sophisticated and a little bit more of a sexy look this living room is also open to the rest of the house it's an open planned space so the lounge made a lot of sense because it created the right kind of circulation as guests arrived and then would move on to the dining room later on in the evening even though it's a small room we needed to create a lot of impact in the room so the choice of art was really important i chose something that was graphic that played off the color palette and the two butterfly paintings by heather miller have incredible impact and the black background really adds to the intimacy in the room the window in the room is quite large but also very simple so the fabric choice there i thought needed to be something that was graphic something that would give it interest and a little bit of architectural detail as well the fireplace was already covered in white tile which i thought was a little too bright for the room and it's quite a big fireplace for the scale of the room so i chose the classic colon sun's wallpaper to help tone down the white and to really bring a modern organic feel to the room i chose a wallpaper with a really large scale which is a great trick in a small space because it really does make the room feel bigger it gives it depth and it gives the wall height and the home owner owned this really great large scale mirror which again in a small room had great impact and actually has the opposite effect of what people might think it actually makes the room feel bigger the homeowner owned this chair already being on a budget we just recovered it and i found an incredible fabric that's got an ombre effect that ties in the rest of the color palette and now the chair sort of stands alone as its own interesting the lighting in this room is really important in creating the ambiance the two sconces on the focal wall were really important just for lighting the key wall but then all the other areas are lit by candlelight just to create a more cozy feel true to the idea of a lounge i didn't put a coffee table in the room we just used three small tables which were quite flexible just enough to perch some food and drinks on and the bar cart that fit perfectly in the corner is from west elm it's the perfect solution for a small space getting this room ready for a holiday cocktail party doesn't take much i just dressed the bar cart with a couple of trees put some ornaments in a bowl laid some berries out and lit some candles and some lanterns and dressed the mantle with a more modern garland this small space project on a budget came together really well the client loves entertaining in this room they can fit between six and eight people in it and we really did make use of a lot of things that the client had and we really just made the most of the small space