Decorating and Design - new decorator - unusual room!

We just bought our first home. It was decorated in good taste, just not ours. I have a dilemma in the basement. It is a daylight, walk-out basement which is part of the house, not an "extra" basement. It does have a very large, odd-shaped room. One end is 9' x 14', the other end is 16' x 14', and in the middle is an unusable space of 8' x 13' with a sliding glass door. The middle is unusable as far as a room because it's a walkway to various rooms/stairs/outside (I thought it'd be a good place for a rug that would pull colors together from the two ends of the large room). One problem is that there is wood-grain paneling (a LOT of paneling), and light grey carpet. The windows and doors are a reddish wood color, I would paint the trim but I don't really want to paint the windows and doors. I don't know what kind of colors to go with and whether or not to paint the paneling. The smaller end of the room I am going to use as home office space, it has a built-in bookshelf and a a little, free-standing gas fireplace. It also has a large L-shaped "desk" (looks built-in, but can be moved around) with carpet (same as floor) up the outsides and the top is grey/white countertop. The large end of the room will have a TV & living room furniture, along with a bar and foosball table. Unfortunately, it has a support pole in the middle :rolleyes:. The bar area is not included in dimensions, it juts out. My husband has a beautiful black and chrome foosball table...I would like to incorporate that or even decorate around it, but am not sure how to do that and at the same time not be way too modern for the rest of the house. I am open to new couches/furniture and painting. I will be keeping the light grey carpet. The house is on an acreage, the previous owners had more of a country style of decorating. This room may not flow with some of the others, but that is fine as they will most likely be changed in the future.

In summary, my confusion is whether or not to paint the paneling (does anyone keep it anymore??), what color to paint it if I do, what colors to use in decorating, and if I should paint the different ends of the room in different tones/colors that would go together (There are plenty of places to start/end colors inbetween). Also open to any ideas I haven't mentioned!!!!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i would paint the paneling. pretend it's just "wall surface" and paint it, leaving the trim, windows & doors stained.

as far as colors go, you need to work with light gray & reddish wood, so i'd say any combination of reds or burgundys or blues or grays or plums would work. i'd avoid anything brown or orangey or yellowy. greens may or may not work. you could work with the black & chrome foosball table by incorporating black & chrome tones in your accessories. to keep it from being contemporary, black could be iron accents and the chrome could be echoed as brushed nickel or pewter.

as long as it's all coordinated, you could do each side of the basement in different colors to further define each of those areas. but if your goal is to make it all seem as big as possible, keep the walls all the same. that's up to you. you could also only paint the very end wall on each side for an accent.

i would not put an area rug in the "no mans land" dead space in the middle. why accent nothing? leave it open & airy there - a breathing space. use rugs in the other 2 areas to define those spaces if you want. (of course, a small rug in front of the sliding door would be practical for wiping feet).

by the way - this space doesn't sound all that unusual to me. it's like most walkout basements. sounds exactly like my brother's, actually. it's a great space - you'll enjoy it!!!

Wow, thanks for your comments and ideas!! It's nice to have a place to go and ask questions and get good answers! Most my friends/family look at me blankly :confused:

Good point on the rugs! And I like your ideas on colors and also incorporating the foosball table!! Great ideas! I appreciate it!!! Thanks!

Consider putting the foosball table into the "unusable space." The dimensions sound large enough, and by your description, it sounds like the area is quite prominent, and since you want to highlight the foosball table. Just an idea. :rolleyes: