All-in-the-Family Room

“Oops!”

Juggling the telephone and the remote control, your teenager drops a plate of spaghetti on the family room rug.

Nearby, the toddler is zooming his toy truck across the new coffee table.

And, is that a bright blue ink spot on the white suede ottoman?

Panicking yet?

Relax.

These everyday disasters would be cause for high anxiety in the typical family room.

But this room is family-proof. The rug is a low-cut pile, patterned in colors that blend with dirt--burgundies, blues and taupe. Wiped-up spaghetti, grape juice or chocolate ice cream won’t show.

The coffee table is rustic, made with distressed wood. A child running a toy across the finish can’t hurt. It gives the piece more character.

And the white ottoman isn’t suede. It’s a synthetic miracle fabric used by designers; it looks like suede and is warmer than leather. Best of all, the material won’t absorb spills. Coffee, juice--even ink--come right out, they say.

In fact, this particular family room doesn’t exist.

But it could.

It’s a composite of suggestions from five local designers. We asked for tips on creating indestructible family rooms for people who want to put up their feet or stretch out, watch TV and eat with impunity. These people need space to store electronics, including a computer, to do homework, to play with toys and to sit and talk.

Oh, and it can’t look like an army barracks either.

Our designers--Lisa Danovich and Kay Leruth of Mission Viejo, Elsa Rosene of Kasden-Rosene Interior Design in Corona del Mar, Anna Shay of Solana Designs in Newport Beach and Susan White of White Design on Balboa Island--agreed that:

* Quality is needed more in this room than in any other. Ditch the plan to use Aunt Edna’s castoffs. You need to spend money on well-constructed furniture. You could end up spending more on the family room sofa than the living room sofa, White and others said.

* Think warmth. From the colors and textures to the lighting and accessories, this room should spell out “home.” Chenille is a cozy but durable fabric, something “you can really scrunch into,” Leruth said. This, also called the great room, is likely to be the most used and one that can be seen from other rooms, so it should be tough but beautiful.

“The biggest general mistake people make is thinking, ‘It’s just for the family, so we’ll use furniture throwaways in here,’ ” Danovich said.

“But if this is the room you spend the most time in with your family, it should be the one that gets the most attention. You should give your family the best.”

Buy furniture that will stand up to children jumping on it or banging into it. Unless you want to replace it in two years, they said.

Most people insist on orienting every piece of furniture in the room toward the TV, Shay said, and they often try to plan for too many people sitting at once.

Instead, get comfortable seating for the number of people who will use the room most of the time (rather than buying furniture for the three times a year the children come home from college and bring their friends), she said. For flexible seating, have chairs elsewhere that can be pulled up, she added.

And, remember, just as there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no white upholstery family rooms--unless, perhaps, it is a miracle fabric.

“People who do all-white family rooms end up getting divorced,” Shay said simply.

The design challenge is that everything has to look great but be practical, she said.

For a family-proof family room, designers agreed on the following:

* Hard surface flooring. For easy cleanup, they like wood, ceramic tile or Mexican pavers with area rugs that can be sent out for cleaning.

Make an area rug by picking out patterned wall-to-wall carpeting and having it cut and bound with a carpet pad under it. Carpets with texture and mottled colors seem to camouflage dirt, as does carpet with tightly twisted yarns. Look for immersion-dyed carpets so the color won’t come out.

* Durable fabrics. Leather, especially distressed, denim and synthetic suede top designers’ lists. Tapestries and other tightly woven fabrics and durable prints were mentioned too. White recently designed a family room sofa in distressed leather with khaki denim cushions that can be zipped off and sent out for cleaning.

* Flexible seating. Think ottomans. You can pull them up for extra seating, use them as coffee tables that will hold drinks in a tray or put your feet up. Shay likes to encourage conversation with circular seating such as five chairs drawn up around an ottoman.

* Scrubbable walls. The designers run the gamut here. Some like tough, commercial-grade wallpaper; others prefer scrubbable paint or a ragged-on glaze. A mural is possible with a final shot of “bulletproofing”--clear lacquer in a satin finish. Danovich recently used an off-white base and ocher paint to create a sunny neutral glaze with yellow undertones for a family room. The uneven surface hides fingerprints.

* No frills. Go for furniture with clean lines--no ruffles to catch crumbs. Use slipcovers that can be easily laundered and allow you to change your look seasonally. Sprawl-ability is important. After observing a client’s teenage son watching TV, Leruth designed a large, half-hexagon-shaped sectional instead of a standard sofa and two chairs.

Generally, the designers preferred built-ins with doors to hide the TV and other electronics and to act as bookcases, toy chests and plant stands. Often, the wood of the built-ins is blended with the kitchen cabinets.

“When children are around, I concentrate on safety. That means no glass tables; all electronic equipment is out of reach and behind doors,” said Rosene, who is about to remodel her own family room to accommodate grand-nephews.

Rosene plans on a built-in entertainment center with doors on the bottom to store games and a big square ottoman and a sectional covered in Novasuede, one of several kinds of synthetic suede--she has removed ink from a white dining room chair covered in the material. The drawback? It’s expensive. The synthetics are about $100 a yard.

Other things designers like to see in family rooms are ceiling fans, flexible task-lighting, open spaces, nicely framed personal items and good use of color.

“Color is real important in a family room,” said Leruth, whose warm family room is popular with her 12-year-old’s friends. The secret is that everything is tough and can be easily cleaned, she said.

Still, as well as the room works for her daughter, a dog and two cats, her next family room carpet, she vows, “is going to be patterned.”