Today's living areas are as diverse as the families who live in them. Consequently, the show house designers created a variety of living rooms that include not only traditional living rooms and great rooms, but also sitting rooms, media rooms, music rooms, sunrooms, and more. These comfortable spaces are defined by function and designed to enhance the homeowners' experience-whether they are conversing with friends, entertaining guests, playing a game, listening to music, watching television, or relaxing with a book.

A quiet spot, the master sitting room is a place to reflect after a day spent at the beach or walking through the Rachel Carson Preserve.

Designer Marcye Philbrook says her inspiration for the room's design came from a Barbara Barry cotton print fabric she found for the draperies. "I had never seen anything like it before," she says, "and it reminded me of tide pools along our seacoast."

Marcye subtly repeated the fabric's soft grayish blue and green tones with hints of tan and gold throughout the room, along with the textures and shapes that could be found in tide pools and salt marshes. "Every detail that I thought about in some way was related to them," she explains. The room reveals these shoreline-inspired elements in thoughtful details: kelp-shaped drapery trim, drapery edge banding with a sea-grass texture, the wavy shape of the drapery headings and mirror frame, the driftwood-colored grass cloth wallpaper that Marcye says reminds her of washed up salt marsh hay, a shag rug like the bottom of the sea floor, and a chest of drawers painted with shells and seaweed. As a finishing touch, Marcye hung her late grandmother's watercolor paintings.

Marcye says when she designs a room she prefers to not match colors exactly because it "is more exciting when your eye does a tiny bit of work," she explains. "Each room is like a painting, with composition, scale and color to consider in almost exactly the same way, whether contemporary, classic, or cottagey."

Designers Susan and Kate Whalen of JRL Studio and J&R Langley created a beautiful yet relaxing living room where friends and family could gather. When they didn't find an architecture feature to highlight, the designers decided to look for an element of interest and fun that also remained respectful to the Colonial style of the home. "We achieved this when we found the whimsical focal fabric with Chinese warriors that was used on the pair of British Colonial chairs," explains Kate. "From there our room took off."

They brought the large space together by using the same butternut and cream tones found in the chairs to create a monochromatic palette throughout the room. They also layered textures by contrasting the woven wood shades, sisal carpet, grass cloth wall covering and custom raffia ottomans with the sleek wrought iron and glass tables and the mirror glass lamps. Though the room's fireplace did not work they were able to create the atmosphere of a cozy fire when they installed "a custom fireplace insert created to look like a modern working fireplace and placed white porcelain logs inside of it," says Kate. "It was striking when completed."

Cindy McLaughlin and Danielle Chulack of Upstairs Downstairs Design created a music room with an eye toward historical accuracy, an element they felt was important to preserve from the moment they first walked into the room.

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"It was the weirdest thing, you walked in there and you kind of felt these presences," says Cindy, "so you had a feeling for what the room was all about." The design stays true to home's early 19th-century origins, and draws on color and luxurious fabrics to create a welcoming atmosphere. Seating arrangements with ornate damask and tapestry patterns face toward the room's piano, and some of the antique accessories are more than 200 years old. The designers also used period-appropriate methods to apply both the Venetian plaster on the rich cinnabar textured walls and the stenciled greens and golds on the ceiling that reflect the tea-stained Oriental rug below. They added a modern sensibility by hanging artwork that is more contemporary in style yet depict rural scenes that would have been familiar views to the home's original owners.

Though it is easy to imagine visitors of days long past in this room, Cindy says that more of their residential clients are requesting music rooms. "I think that living rooms should have a definite purpose, otherwise people don't use them," she explains.

The cognac room instills images of the 19th-century guests retiring after dinner from the neighboring dining room with a an après-dinner cocktail. "I just thought it was the perfect place to sit and read and just listen to music, enjoy the fireplace and—for those who enjoy a nice glass of cognac—go into a trance in," says designer Christian Boyér.

The room also contains a small gallery with six pieces of art, including a painting by Nashua artist Monique Sakellarios over the fireplace. "It brings you deep into the room when you look at the center of it," says Christian.

Because of the room's location in the middle of the house, Christian used toned-down colors that subtly coordinated with the nearby dining room and sunroom and gave the room a sense of being both cozy and inviting. Dark chestnut floors give way to cream colored walls that both kept the feeling neutral and warm, and created a gradual transition into the other rooms. He also introduced furniture that conveyed a sense of glamour: the soft, light aqua sofa with a raised chenille and velvety texture, and a beautiful hand-painted Oriental liquor cabinet adorned with crystal glasses and decanters.

The subdued shades of light aqua, cream, and warm chestnut in the cognac room are echoed in the adjoining Newport Beach sunroom in vibrant hues of ocean and sky. Also designed by Christian Boyér, the room is filled with sunshine and views of the surrounding outdoors, which are carefully incorporated into the design.

Christian says when he found the painting "Sand Drawings on the Coast" by Carol Aronson-Shore, it inspired the beachy tones in the room. Installed on the room's one solid wall, the painting "has no frame intentionally so that it looks like a window looking beyond," explains Christian. "It just takes you away."

To continue the outdoorsy feeling Christian introduced elements of nature throughout the room: a dark sand color on the upholstery that implies earthy sand tones on beaches, a custom-designed chaise lounge with an aqua coral reef pattern, rattan and reed furniture, Moroccan baskets, a tarnished silver bowl filled with sand, a wooden bird cage, a sofa table with an inlaid fossil finish, and a tall palm tree whose large leaves reach up to the vaulted ceiling upon which he carried the bright aqua wall color to convey a feeling of endless sky.

The focal point of the media room is a prominent yet attractive video cabinet built to resemble architectural elements of 18th century buildings, and is reminiscent of vintage step-back cupboards.

The room's undeniable masculine appeal is reinforced by menswear-inspired design intended to be both comfortable and sophisticated. "We started with two large chairs covered in a rich caramel and brown tweed, which has the appeal of a fine tailored men's suit," says designer Michael Englehardt of Ethan Allen, which provided all the furnishings. "To add a hint of luxury we added a round oversized ottoman in a distressed brown leather with worn nail heads, creating a relaxed look of a leather bomber jacket."

Michael added seating by tucking a bench covered in a pony-print fabric under a chow style side table. To complete the room he placed an assortment of art consisting of Sepia tone boat prints and vintage photographs of American Indians. "The addition of a couple of large scale pieces of wall decor adds a modern layer to the room," says Michael.

Designer Diane Hughes of Diane Hughes Interiors discovered a striking orchid wallpaper from Cole & Son for her inspiration to create an atmosphere of elegance and femininity in madam's study.

"It just came together very beautifully," says Diane, who pulled the wallpapers' colors of sea-glass, lavender, blues, and greens, into different elements of the room in sometimes unexpected ways by combining patterns and styles.

Diane explains that the relaxing tones—reminiscent of the ocean's color palette—add to the beauty and calm of the room, and made it possible for her to combine the different patterns of the orchid wallpaper, blue wool rug with tiny medallions of silk, and silk plaid draperies. "I found that beautiful silk fabric for the window treatments, and it just melted into the wall," she says. "It was perfect."

Diane furnished the room with classic pieces—the highlight a beautiful antique D.R. Dimes desk from American Traditions—but the room is more of a quiet retreat than an office. "I just wanted the room to be very relaxing," she explains. "You can be retrospective and serene or you can sit down and read a book, or write notes."

Designer Ann Henderson says she sought to create a great room that united the formality of the space with the day-to-day living of a modern family.

In contrast to the media room, added built-ins hide all of the modern audio and television components and blend seamlessly with the existing wainscot paneling, thanks to the beautiful faux finish wainscot created by artist Jane Considane. "I wanted the feel of ocean spray, the movement of waves, but with the warmth of the fire in those walls," says Ann. "A tall order but she filled it to perfection."

nn says Winslow Homer's "Breezing Up" inspired the room's palette of "soothing sea and sky tones that are grounded with earthy browns and punched up with shots of red." Similar to the painting, "the interior of this space must balance with the colors of nature that are so enveloping and beautiful in the view out the back of the room," which looks down toward the cove.

The reference to ocean adventure—made even more appropriate by the homeowner's passion for sailing-"is not so much a theme as it is a setting that makes this room uniquely related to its beautiful locale," says Ann. "Exotic elements such as the antique Chinese altar table and Italian urns suggest the time-honored tradition of sailing for treasure while the light fixtures suggest smoke bell lanterns and stars."