#HIPPOS HOUSE OF BILLIARDS TV#

“The room gets a lot of use,” says Kelly. Cambridge architecture firm Foley Fiore, which designed the Renners’ mahogany-clad billiard room, sited it in the heart of the house, between the family room and the sun porch. “A lot of people don’t consider putting games on the main level, but out of sight is out of mind,’’ she says. Weston homeowners Kelly and Dale Renner, whose family Kelly describes as “very game-oriented,” located their pool table in a central spot.

This Official Namco Pac-Man Arcade Cocktail Table is a great addition to any game room

#HIPPOS HOUSE OF BILLIARDS TV#

Spacious, sunny, and architecturally interesting, it’s become a hub of family activity, with a pool table, foosball, Pac-Man machine, huge TV area, and even a separate exercise room and media room. Huth Architects, considered the unused attic of a client’s home in the Brattle Street area of Cambridge, he suggested transforming the area into a game room. When Tom Huth, principal of Cambridge firm Thomas R. Sometimes a space simply lends itself to the task. By contrast, if it’s constricted or cold, once the initial excitement of having a pool table or arcade game wears off, nobody is going to want to hang out there. Maggie Booz, principal of Smart Architecture in Cambridge, asserts that a successful game room is a place where people want to spend time regardless of its paraphernalia. And even when game areas are located in the basement, interior designers work to ensure homeowners don’t feel as though they’re underground. Homeowners are clearing cobwebs from attics and asking architects to cut skylights and contractors to retrofit HVAC systems to create light-filled aeries to house foosball and flat screens. Billiard rooms are appearing in the heart of the house. Even as designers have re-branded subterranean space as the “lower level,” families are moving entertainment areas upstairs. Gone are the days when pool, Ping-Pong, dartboards, and the like were afterthoughts, relegated to an unfinished basement or stuck in an extra, unloved room. This article is courtesy of the Marni Elyse Katz of the Boston Globe Why more families are dedicating space to playing together (and with their friends).

Hippos house of billiards