How To Create A Stylish Family Snug Room

Bright blue wall and yellow sofa in new family room

Snug rooms…what are they? A cosy place to watch TV? Somewhere for the kids to play games? A music room? A Lego storage garage?! There are loads of potential uses for a snug room if you are lucky enough to have the space. Once our kitchen reno was finished, I looked at the old dining room as the perfect space to create a stylish snug and I had lots of ideas to make it the perfect family room.

Here is the room in question:

room before modern family room makeover

I love the light in this room and the interest that the bay window gives. When you open our front door you can see straight down the hallway into this room and out to the garden. So I was conscious that while I wanted to design a modern family snug room that’s vibrant and lively, I also didn’t want to do anything that was going to jar too much with the rest of our home decor as it’s pretty much on display from the front door.

Snug Room Ideas

A squishy sofa

Number one priority for our snug room was to have a lovely squishy sofa, less formal than in the living room; where we can all spread out and get comfy to watch TV if we want. The kids also wanted room to play Xbox or watch a movie with their friends if they like. While initially I was keen on the idea of a velvet sofa, with 2 growing boys and a dog in our house I realised this probably just wasn’t practical! So instead we went for a leather sofa, in a beautiful shade of ochre / mustard yellow from Sofology:

Lovely squishy mustard yellow sofa for our snug room.

Snug Room Storage

I was really keen to have plenty of storage in the snug, for all those jigsaw puzzles, board games and books that we have as a family. In an ideal world I’d have something like this to really maximise storage:

large built in storage and media unit, perfect for a modern family room.
Image: enigmadesign.ie

One of the challenges in the room however was a large radiator right where it would be perfect to have a big storage unit! I didn’t want to sit looking at a radiator, so we come up with a solution that could hide the radiator and provide a good amount of storage. Here it is:

We bought 2 1000mm kitchen base cupboards from B&Q and cut them down to 400mm in depth, as opposed to the usual 600mm. One of these cupboards contains the radiator, and the other provides a good amount of storage:

We also bought a piece of laminate worktop to fit on the top and finish it off. So the radiator still heats the room without having to open the cabinet doors, I have replaced the centre sections of the cabinets with rattan panels.

white cabinet doors after having rattan panels added

We hope to add some wall storage around the TV to make it more of a media unit / library at a later date.

A desk

Our snug room has a beautiful bay window and I love the light that comes in from it. I thought that it would make a wonderful desk area, for the kids to play Lego on and do their homework. I was after something that fit perfectly into the alcove, and we also wanted a material that could withstand a lot of wear and tear. So we bought a piece of wood effect laminate worktop and Mr G cut it to fit. There was quite a lot of huffing and puffing getting it into position; worktops are heavy! It fits snugly under the window sill and is the ideal height for working at. In fact I’m sitting at the desk now typing this!

Snug Room Colour Inspiration

I wanted to create a space that would work for the whole family in a number of different ways and would have a fun, modern and yet still cosy cottage feel. My 2 kids were keen to incorporate both blue and yellow into the decor, and I think I did that:

A Bright Zingy space now!

As it’s a fairly small room I want to keep most of the walls a light and bright off-white. The mustard sofa with an indigo blue wall behind gives a zing of warmth and colour. I hope this strikes a really good balance between a vibrant modern family snug room for the kids while still being cosy and welcoming for the grownups. I painted the window reveals blue too, which I think gives a subtle extra touch of style without overwhelming the room.

The window reveals were a nightmare to get neat – but I love the effect!

Flooring

We’ve used the same laminate flooring as in the kitchen – so we now have this running throughout our interior downstairs. I love the flow that this gives. The kids also wanted a fluffy rug, so this simple diamond pattern one, feels very snuggly underfoot!

Blinds

As our snug room is fairly small, simple white venetian blinds don’t overwhelm the room or block the light and the view too much:

Snug Room Artwork

I have a collection of the kids favourite bits of artwork that I wanted to display in the snug room. A picture shelf installed above the TV provides an excellent space for displaying this. Using a shelf also means that the images can frequently be updated and changed.

picture shelf for displaying art in the snug room

On the blue wall behind the sofa I have made a sign using EL Wire:

EL wire sign on the wall in the snug room

Overall I’m delighted with how the different elements of this room have come together 🙂