It’s Design Challenge time again on ‘The Living Room’ and this time around the brief was to create a lounge room with a consistent theme. Matt and Annette couldn’t seem to agree on a style, and had furniture that fit quite a few genres – including Art Deco, Post-Modern and French Provincial. The other issue was that their furry friend ‘Sir Barks-a-Lot’ had been dominating the sofa for far too long, and hence the challenge was set : a custom dog bed was to be made!

Original lounge room with L-shaped sofa

We started out where we always do with these challenges, and that was nutting out the layout. Our first decision was to ditch the L-shaped sofa, as it was way too bulky for such a small space. Replacing the L-shape with a 3.5-seater sofa positioned to face outwards to the patio, and installing the TV on a swivel bracket meant that it would be comfortable to watch from either the sofa or the outdoor area.

To better utilise the nook under the windows, we boxed out the area with a bench seat. Yes, I know we’ve done that before, but so many problems can be solved with a bench seat!

The catch with this one, is that the seat has pull out drawers for storage on one end, and a custom pull-out dog bed on the other! So when Matt and Annette have guests coming over and need more seating, they can simply push the dog bed back in.

All furniture and styling pieces from Zanui.

Visit TenPlay to catch up on the full episode and find step-by-step instructions for our custom build.