Having a small space or an open layout doesn’t have to prevent the room from being multi-purpose. With the right furniture you can open floor space for game nights like charades or twister, and have multiple configurations for a movie night with family and friends.
Below you’ll find furniture options for living rooms that double as study spaces, and guest rooms that can be entertainment rooms when you don’t have visitors. It starts by thinking about what you’ll be using the room for and then matching the furniture to the uses.
Instead of choosing furniture strictly based on budget or appearance, modular furniture opens up your room for multiple functions by compacting and expanding when you need more or less floor space or surface areas. For example, sectional couches can be reconfigured in L shapes, U shapes, two rows, or large squares. This lets you position them for the room’s needs including opposing seating during a game of charades or as a traditional sofa setup for hosting movie nights with friends.
Another example is a coffee to dining table in either a square or a large rectangle shape for the dining table setting. In a family or living room, the coffee table serves its normal purpose of holding decor items and giving people a place to set drinks, keys, and snacks. When expanded to a square table at a dining table height, you now have a card and board game table perfect for game night.
Larger rectangular coffee to dining tables like our Box Coffee to Dining table free up floor space as guests arrive to a party or holiday meals in the coffee table setting, then lift and extend to seat 10 guests comfortably for dinner.
The goal is not just to fill space, but to create a single room flexible enough for games, movies, sleeping, and studying without sacrificing comfort. Here’s some examples of how to convert standard rooms in your house into game rooms, entertainment rooms, and study spaces.
Furniture for Game Nights
Most family nights are held in a large open room like a living room, finished basement, or patio. For larger entertainment spaces, it’s important to leave open space for activities like charades and Twister while providing enough seating and not leaving the place looking too empty.
The average size living room in the US is 216 sq. ft. and Twister boards are roughly 25 square feet, meaning that you will need to clear a quarter of your space to play. Twister isn’t the only space stealing game as there’s also charades, musical chairs at a kids birthday party, or Pictionary with teams on both sides and a large pad of paper for drawing.
Sectional couches are ideal for these rooms because they can be split into two sides for team seating or pushed together for group activities like karaoke. You'll want to avoid big armchairs that can take up substantial room while only seating one guest, and are still bulky when pushed against a wall. You'll be losing seating spaces for guests and floor space for larger games.
Standalone bulky couches are also not ideal because they are difficult to move both because of their weight and because they get snagged on carpets. Sectionals are split into pieces so they are lighter and easier to maneuver, especially around coffee and end tables.
For tabletop games like large puzzles, Pokemon Cards, or Dungeons & Dragons, which range in size from 25 sq. ft. to 100, you’ll need surfaces that expand to allow for more players. This is where lifting and extending coffee tables come into play. Our Alzare Square starts at a standard coffee table size and height, then opens to a dining height square that seats 8. This is plenty of space for card or role playing games, puzzles, and pretty much anything else.
This balance of open space, flexible surfaces, and modular seating with transformer tables keeps game nights comfortable and adaptable.
Furniture for Movie Nights
Movie nights require seating, spaces for proper lighting, and surfaces that maximize comfort while keeping snacks and drinks accessible. And movie nights can take on multiple shapes where you have two rows of seating so the kids can use the back and adults in the front.
L shape configurations or single rows for friends to enjoy the movie together are two more options with your sectional sofa for movie nights. And an open configuration with all pieces against the walls allows space for kids sleepover parties and sleeping bags. This makes sectional couches the ideal multi-functional furniture for rooms that host movie nights.
Unlike standard coffee tables, a lift-top coffee table rises toward you so you can place food within reach and without having lean forward and possibly miss in the dark. This reduces spills and makes the experience more relaxed so everyone can enjoy the movie. But this post is about multi-functional spaces so we're going to share how you can take this flexibility even further.
If you want the ability to prevent spills and have easy snacking, but also a study area, or where somewhere someone can watch tv and relax at the same time as someone is studying at desk height, styles like Occam are for you.
There are two separate lifting surfaces so people can snack while watching a movie or get work done during non-entertainment hours, while other people in the room have a regular height coffee table to rest their feet or set keys and a drink on. Now you have the perfect surfaces for movie nights, study hours, and decor when the room is used for traditional purposes.
This flexibility is what makes the room feel like a true home theater. Go with tables that have lift top surfaces, and seating that can be moved easily so everyone can view the movie, then be put back quickly without bumping furniture or bunching up rugs so the space goes back to a living area.
Furniture for Study Rooms
Study rooms need to support concentration while limiting distractions, which can be difficult if the study room is near the kitchen where smells come through, a basement or game room where noise will enter from, or the furniture makes you slouch or lean vs. holding good posture.
The first thing to do is look for heavy and sound dampening furniture or decor including heavy curtains and a rug. While rugs are meant to stop noise from traveling below the floor, they can also help trap some of the noise that comes up through it too. It’s an easy way to begin turning a room meant for relaxing or entertaining into a study area where kids, teens, and adults can focus.
Similarly, modular bookshelves made with dense hardwood that are filled with books and other decor can cushion noise from outside. This helps you to focus on your task at hand. If you want to try and reduce stress while adding a comfortable vibe, add plants to the space too. Indoor plants may help reduce psychological stress like this article at NIH shows, making them ideal for rooms where you want to relax and where you feel stress from studying.
A lot of times multi-purpose rooms will have a person studying or working in a slouched position over a coffee table. This is likely not ideal both for your body and for studying. Having proper posture has been shown to help with processing speeds and mood. This study also showed that upright posture increased mood, reduced stress, and gave people more self-esteem.
These are all vital when the room is used to study for exams or do work. So instead of having people slouch at a low coffee table, if the room is a guest bedroom and study room, go for a murphy bed with a desk so people can study at the proper height and you have somewhere for guests to sleep. If the limitation is space, get a desk that collapses into a small filing cabinet like our Ludovico or Cove for a family room.
Noise is always going to be a deterrent from studying, so here are some easy ways to reduce it in the room while being able to keep the room decorated as a guest room, game room, living room, or basement.
- Thicker furniture like solid cupboards or shelving units double as storage and can hold thick materials that break up sound waves like books and decorative boxes. Try adding a white noise machine out of sight on the top shelf to further bring peace to the space.
- Heavy curtains, rugs, or acoustic wall panels reduce echoes and block noise from other rooms. This ensures the space feels separate, even if it’s part of a shared household. And they come in decorative styles, not just the ones you’d see in a music studio.
Making a room multi-functional for game nights, movie nights, and studying is easy when you start with the purpose of the room, then match the furniture to each of the uses. If you’re currently redesigning your spaces, click here to contact our team. We’re experts in multi-functional furniture and room design and will be happy to help.
