Holistic Home: Gym

Rooms often need to do multiple duty, accommodating different activities into one area. In Episode 2 of The Design Network’s series, Holistic Home, host Briana Bosch, recreates the gym/office in owners’ Jordan and Jeff’s home into a functional and healthy space where work and self-care can coexist.

Jeff runs his business from home, and to help incorporate a healthier lifestyle, established his work space in a small room dedicated as the couples’ gym. He included a standing desk by the treadmill to keep active while working. Conceptually smart, it lacked good design, and wasn’t a particularly inviting place to spend long hours working as well as time working out. Jordan works in the ER and looks to this space as both a place to care for his physical health and to unwind from the day’s stresses for his emotional well-being, too.

Striving to find balance in work and physical and emotional well-being can be as challenging for a room’s design as it is for the people who occupy its space. Bosch started out with determining the room’s multiple functions: workspace; gym; spa-like relaxation retreat. She then sought to bring the rest of the home’s design aesthetic – a modern balance of clean industrial chic and organic warmth – into the gym/office.

The stark white walls made the dark, bulky gym equipment look overpowering and visually overtake the space. Bosch decided to soften the contrast by incorporating a graphic paint technique on the main wall. She used the silhouettes of trees at dusk as her design inspiration, with cleaner lines for a more geometric feel. For wall color inspiration, Bosch took her ColorReader EZ to her farm and scanned a shade from an old tractor to find a perfect charcoal hue.

The smokey shade in the geometric print helps make the gym equipment “fade” into the space so it’s no longer the focal point. The addition of natural elements such as a wooden computer stand, plants for greenery and oxygen, and a comfy corner to relax in, transformed a sterile, uninspired space into an inviting room in which to work and re-charge.

Watch the episode now: