A sophisticated family room that’s absolutely OK for the kids to stretch out in.

By Lauren Purcell, HouseBeautiful.com, published April, 2024

The mission: to turn a large, open room with traditional decor into a “cool, smart, and youthful” refuge for a family with two teenagers to comfortably lounge in. Having taken on the refresh of this Bethesda, Maryland, family room, Lynne Lawson and Laura Outland of Lawson Dream Team—which is part of Decorating Den Interiors, a collective of individually owned and operated design firms across the U.S.—succeeded in maximizing the feeling of spaciousness and light while still making the cavernous space feel cozy. Here’s how.

Draw the Eye Across the Room

Along with its size, one of the room’s most striking features is its wall of windows overlooking a beautifully sculpted golf course, a view that makes an impact the minute visitors enter the home—or at least should. “The way the layout is set up, when you walk in the front door, you have a foyer, but you see straight out that window from the door,” says Outland. Unfortunately, multiple drapery panels with contrasting borders “took your eyes to the window treatments instead,” she says. “They stopped the eye from traveling.”

The duo positioned more substantial drapes at the edges of the sweeping picture window to frame the grounds beyond. “We wanted to support the view, not cut it off,” Lawson says. They selected a light-gray fabric so as not to compete with nature; the light sheen of the cotton blend picks up the sunlight pouring in.

The large-scale pattern of the existing rug posed a similar problem: It drew eyes down instead of up and across. The Lawson team replaced it with a larger rug in a contemporary gray-on-gray abstract, adding warmth without visual distraction. In fact, the only pattern in the room competing with the view is on the pillows adorning the sectional.

Choose Furniture That Anchors the Space

The homeowner wanted to jettison the room’s curved three-seater sofa, which she found neither attractive nor comfortable. It was also far too small to contain gangly teenage limbs, and it made the area feel empty. Lawson and Outland designed a huge sectional to take its place, covering it in gray performance fabric—since this is a room where if shoes “accidentally” land on the sofa, it shouldn’t be the end of the world. The capacious couch can hold Mom, kids, and friends, with room left over for the family’s two cats and two dogs.

Further grounding the seating area is a grandly sized, cantilevered cocktail table that “steals the show,” Lawson says. The piece chosen for this spot had to hold its own against the behemoth sectional and yet not seem hulking itself. “We didn’t want it to just be a big block of table, so we loved that it has different materials,” Lawson adds. “The top is frosted glass, and then you have different tones of wood, so that breaks it up visually.”

Strive for Balance—But Not Necessarily Uniformity

Symmetry creates harmony and a feeling of calm—crucial in a large space, where too many disparate elements can make it feel as though your eye is bouncing from one to another. Lawson and Outland balanced the L-shaped sectional with twin slate blue velvet lounge chairs that flank the fireplace, as do matching built-ins on either side.

One challenge was the existence of a single small window above the shelving on the left side. In the room’s previous iteration, a mirror hung in the corresponding space on the right—usually an effective technique to visually echo a window. Here, however, the mirror reflected the kitchen opposite, clashing with the serenity of the window view. Instead, Lawson and Outland added an airy artwork that conveys the same mood as the glimpse of trees and lawn.

Don’t Forgo Glam

The family room’s color scheme grew from the one existing element the homeowner asked to keep: the slate-blue-and-gold cork wallpaper on the coffered ceiling. It was a request the designers gladly acceded to—and then used as a jumping-off point, echoing the grays and blues with the room’s fabrics and amplifying the metallic speckles by distributing gold accents throughout on side tables, decorative trays, lamps, objets, even the drapery rods. A bold, architectural chandelier caps things off. “We chose gold and gold-leaf accents to add a bit of glam to the cool color palette,” the designers say. “The gold warms it up, and it’s a nice tug and pull with the cool tones of the furniture.”

Lynne Lawson                               Laura Outlamd