Decorating A Media Room

Living in the golden age of media you can't help but have DVDs, video games, CDs, books and magazines laying all over your house-or can you? It is possible to be chic and still keep the media you love.

The hard thing about living in a modern, "I can have as many books, CDs, computer games, video games, video game systems, DVDs and other media types as I want" age is finding a place to put it all in your otherwise well-designed home. This is one of the major challenges in interior decorating but it is solvable. Dealing with media and its storage in interior decorating is a snap if you have a strategy:

If you have the space to accommodate this rule it can be just what you need to create peace and serenity-the exact feelings that put you to sleep at night. The television is a way to keep yourself up at night not to mention the ugly clutter of cables, speakers, etc. that will find a way to pile up. Books, on the other hand, can require an exponential amount of shelving space that is more appropriate for a study, office, etc.

The first thing people see when they enter your home is the front area. You should try to keep your television and other media out of this area-unless you have a really excellent boudoir media stand with closing doors-because these items create a cluttered looked and stressed feeling. The best thing you can do for this area is keep any and all media out of the room or out of sight and keep it simple with a couple of comfortable couches, a beautiful rug and a few paintings.

Exceedingly similar to a rec room, a media room should be a fun and footloose place to hand out and have fun. You could incorporate your office, study den into your media room to save space. Any good media room is decorated in a fun, carefree way. One of the best ways to do that is with a mod or college dorm design.

A futon is a great way to make a sitting area, but your pride and joy will definitely be your mod, decorative rug.

A decorative rug can protect your carpet from the inevitable spills and heavy foot traffic, making your media room easier to maintain. Plus, you can buy your decorative rug to match or highlight all of the great media storage cabinets and racks you can set up around the room's perimeters. A soft, contemporary area rug is the perfect place to chill when you're playing video games or when you have an overflow of guests. After all, no one wants their guests just sitting on the plain, old carpet!

In this media-ridden age, you can create a techy-looking home, which you probably don't want to do, or you can go for the "media behind the scenes" look, where your comfort and style precede your love for movies, television and the written word. If it'll make you feel better, you can always call your media room the "Learning Center."