The front of this flat was already committed to a formal lounge that nobody would relax in. That left one room to absorb everything the formal side could not take: a television on every night, homework at the same hour as the television, a ceiling fan running through summer and upholstery that gets sat on in outdoor clothes.
A second sitting room only works if it is given a different character rather than a smaller budget. This one drops the crystal and the gold panelling entirely, runs grey, and takes its cues from what an ordinary weekday evening in a large flat actually involves.
Giving the Second Sitting Room a Job of Its Own
The first decision was to stop this room competing with the one at the front. No matched sofa set, no chandelier, no polished stone. Instead a deep grey sectional, artwork chosen for scale rather than for statement, and a ceiling that carries ring pendants at a normal height. A family room built as a scaled down version of a formal lounge always loses the comparison, and the household ends up using neither properly.
The test we apply is simple. If a family still drifts to the formal lounge a month after moving in, the second room was designed wrong. This one is planned so the pull runs the other way, which is exactly what the two room split in a large apartment is for. That whole arrangement is visible in the common space design service approach we take to shared spaces.
Seating One Sectional Toward Two Rooms at Once
A sectional was the only seat shape that could face two directions without cluttering the floor. The long run sits square to the wall mounted television, and the short return faces the dining and kitchen end, so somebody sitting there stays in conversation with whoever is cooking without turning round. An ocean canvas hangs above the long run and an abstract sits on the adjacent wall, both large enough to hold their walls without needing a second piece.
Fabric was chosen for wear before appearance. It is a tight woven grey with a high rub count, in a shade close enough to dust that a Dhaka window does not show on it within a week of the cleaner’s last visit. Cushions can be recovered separately from the frame, which is how this kind of sofa lasts a decade.
Fitting a Working Desk Into a Room Meant for Relaxing
We built the desk into the same wall as the television, at full working depth with cabinets above, rather than at the shallow depth people use when they want a desk to pass as a console. Children work where the adults are, not alone behind a door, and a desk that is too shallow for a laptop and a notebook side by side gets abandoned within a term.
A second nook takes a different form: a backlit ledge desk floating off the wall with cabinets mounted above it. Floating the desk keeps the floor clear so the sectional can sit close, and it gives a chair somewhere to tuck fully underneath. Storage above rather than below is what keeps the ledge looking like part of the room instead of like office furniture. Homework happens out here rather than in the luxury girls bedroom design in Gulshan 2, which was planned around clothes and sleep instead of study.
Dividing It From the Dining Table Without Building a Wall
A gold framed glass partition marks the edge between this room and the dining area. Solid would have made a corridor of the connection and cut the daylight that crosses the floor plate; nothing at all would have left the sectional sitting in the middle of a dining room. Glass in a frame gives the edge a line without taking the view.
That partition is also the single decorative element carried over from the formal half of the flat, and it is what stops this room reading as a different apartment. The gold matches the metalwork used through the front rooms and the bedrooms, including the handles in the luxury master bedroom design in Gulshan 2.
Hanging a Ceiling Fan Without Ruining the Ceiling Plan
The fan was placed first and the lighting was drawn around it. In a room used every day through a Dhaka summer the fan matters more than any fixture, so it sits where the seating needs it, in a finish that matches the pendants, and the ring pendants were then positioned to clear the blade sweep. Fans added at the end always end up off centre, chopping the light from a downlight into a flicker.
What the Second Room Has to Earn
If you are planning a large flat with two sitting rooms, the useful question is not how to make the second one look good. It is what belongs only here: the fan, the desk, the durable fabric, the storage, the route to the kitchen. None of those things belong at the front, and all of them are fixed points in this room. Rooms used a few weeks a year, like the luxury guest bedroom design in Gulshan 2, can be planned the other way round, on appearance first.
Put this room and the formal lounge side by side in the 3,000 sq ft Gulshan 2 apartment project and the difference in intent shows in the first photograph. One is arranged for arrival and the other for a Tuesday evening, and neither had to be watered down to make room for the other. Apartments where we have split the living space the same way are listed under our interior design service in Gulshan.
Not sure your second sitting room is earning the floor it takes? Call us at 01633-033033 or book a free consultation today.
