How to Design an Entertainers Delight Home

A home is a very personal thing. It is something close to your heart. It’s where you spend much of your time and is your sanctuary from the rest of the world. Your home should make you feel good.

When building or renovating your home, you need to think about the things that are important to you. In Three Birds House 10, what was important to Sophie Bell was that it was an ‘Entertainers Delight’ where she could be social and host loads of guests. She wanted to create a relaxing holiday vibe that was social, with a Mediterranean edge, and she achieved just that.

In thinking about entertaining, this usually revolves around a meal and some relaxing ‘chit-chat’ time. The rooms most important for this are the dining areas, the kitchen (so you don’t feel removed from the group while preparing a meal) and lounge areas.

1. Consider your climate and if utilising an outdoor space will work most of the time, try incorporate outside into the plan. Try to blend the spaces so there is a seamless transition between inside and out. This increases the physical space and creates another haven people can break away to. By removing the feeling of having a wall between the inside and outside space will help open it up and create the flow. Using large sliding doors and lots of glass will help achieve this.

2. Not only do you need to think about how you want to use your house when your friends are there, but also when you are home as a family. You may not want the distraction of a TV while you have guest but enjoy curling up with a movie when home alone. In this home there is a projector that pops down from the roof then retracts and fits seamlessly with the lining boards on the ceiling is the perfect compromise. Haven’t noticed it in the photos?? Well hidden isn’t it?!

3. Having a breakfast nook and a large dining table in the same space in this home has certainly caused a stir! If you want a smaller round table for a more conversational, intimate experience with your family everyday and then the grandeur of large, formal space in the evenings – then go for it! When entertaining, this does give you more space and options for dining depending on the number of guests as well as more seating and areas where people can break off into smaller groups for a chat.

4. There is always talk when designing a home about practicality, and this does need to be considered when designing an entertainers dream home, but sometimes you can just include things because they are beautiful and make you happy. Consider how you want to live in your home, how you want to feel in it and what’s important to you. This beautiful entry spaces are just that, beautiful spaces for some artwork, key furniture and architectural details to shine (that round window just takes the cake)! The artwork used here is also very special. The images look like something taken straight out of a postcard but are actually photos from a family holiday featuring members who live in the home. Adding subtle personal touches like this and thinking outside the box helps create a home you love and allows you to surround yourself with things you love that may not normally fit in with your design dreams.

5. Balance your colours and textures, remember this is an entertainers home so needs to have some wow factor and feel inviting. With the vast white spaces and light colours used in Sophie’s home the warm timber flooring and texture from ceiling lining boards and high skirting boards create an overall look that is beautiful and balanced.

6. Keep a flow throughout the home where one space seamlessly transitions and leads to the next. Skirting boards are the perfect addition to tie all your rooms together and transition from space to space. They also add texture and detail to elevate your design, and Lana from Three Birds Renovations agrees, noting in the Episode 2 home reveal that “skirting changes your house, it makes all the difference.”

7. Create social areas for all occasions and breakaway areas people can escape to for some quiet or more personal conversations. The media room in this home is the perfect little private and cosy nook that still feels like part of the house with the use of the large glass sliding doors and double sided fireplace to the main lounge. This keeps a nice flow through the home and doesn’t close the room off completely from the rest of the common areas.

8. Where are all the people going to sit??!! We’ve all had those moments when we have more people than we can fit in our home and are stuck pulling out the camping chairs to seat the last few guests. If you can think of neat ways to incorporate more seating, especially so your guests can all remain social is sometimes a tricky one, although here the The Birds have again found a solution! Back to back lounges, built in bench seats, hanging outdoor chairs and mixing the formal dining table with chairs and a bench seat is genius.

By planning out what is important to you in your home for when you entertain and how you want people to mingle in your home, and what you can fit within the space you have is mandatory. By using a few clever ideas like Sophie has in her home you can combat some restrictions you may face between getting what you want and what you have to work with. Either way, keep it your style and somewhere you are excited to spend your time alone or with company!