Let your home be a drama-free scene for teens by creating a special space for the young adults in your life.

Dubbed the "teen lounge," this space should be one in which young people can be comfortable and keep company with friends, says M. Elodie Froment, vice president of product development for Pottery Barn Teen (or PBteen), based in San Francisco.

"Parents create this space so their house can become a 'destination home' for teenagers," Froment says. "This space gives parents the ability to interact with their teen children and friends."

The first step to creating an adolescent abode within the home requires communication. "Parents and children need to decide where the teen lounge will be located within a home," Froment says. "A family needs to have a dialogue about rules and expectations, as well as design tastes and preferences in this teen-specific space."

Preferably, a teen lounge is a semi-public place in the home's basement, a finished attic space or unused room in the house. The teen lounge should be a place to give young adults their space, but not be so private that parents can't check in on their activities.

Froment says the child's playroom can grow and evolve into a teen lounge, but not without clearing the childish chattel first. "A teen lounge should have a sophistication about it, so that means getting rid of the baby toys and child-sized furniture," she says. "This space should be one where teens can hang out and lounge around in a comfortable atmosphere."

A teen lounge can bring its A-game by having a pingpong or pool table, and/or be a blockbuster with a home theater to watch movies and listen to music. Above all, the teen lounge should be both collaborative and comfy. "Know what interests the teens will be pursuing -- homework, movies, games -- and design around that," Froment says. "Decide if you want the lounge to look feminine, masculine or have a unisex appeal, and that will dictate how the space comes together."

Painting the walls is the easiest way to create a mood in the space. A teen lounge can become instantly cool with a shade of blue or the space can be warm with deep, saturated color on the walls. White walls invite color through the use of artwork or large wall decals.

A cozy teen lounge starts from the ground up, so installing new carpeting or a plush area rug can create a warm feeling underfoot. "Having comfortable flooring is essential," Froment says. "Not only do teens tend to sprawl out on the floor, a colorful rug can set the tone for the entire room."

The seating setup can be one of the largest investments in the teen lounge. Froment says a sturdy sectional in an easy-to-clean, neutral microfiber or denim fabric is a thoroughly modern and modular choice. Teens can move pieces out of the way for an impromptu dance party or configure seating for some optimal screen time when watching a movie.

After the seating has been arranged, determining the size and placement of a television screen is the next step. Whether used for gaming or watching movies, the picture should be large enough to be easily visible from every seat in the room. A dynamic surround-sound system is also a bonus when listening to music or watching a movie.

A bright tip to set the mood in the space is to give some thought to the light fixtures. Whether you're hanging a vintage chandelier, sleek pendants or recessed can lights, have the lighting on a dimmer switch, so it can be turned down during a movie marathon. But, teens don't need to be in the dark when it comes to doing homework or reading, so invest in interesting lamps for task lighting.

While furniture can be in neutral tones, accessorize with textures and pops of color. Pillows, throws and draperies -- which are easily changed out -- can have atomic oranges, sea-glass blues and sherbet-lime greens that enliven a space. Have throw pillows for sectional seating, but also have large pillows for the floor or a sleepover.

"The teen lounge should reflect a youthful personality," Froment says. "While it should look put together, teen lounge decor decisions shouldn't be made from a parent's perspective." Froment says the room should be inviting and non-fussy, and can feature a repurposed trunk that doubles as a coffee table and storage, while old record album covers can be hung on walls.

Feeding teens is also an important part of having a lounge. "Have a place where you can set up a buffet of pizza boxes and bowls of snacks," Froment says. "After all, replenishing food is a great excuse for parents to check on what's happening in the teen lounge."

TEEN SCENE

Go to PBTeen.com and search, "teen lounge" for more ideas.

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A radiant heating system can take the chill off ceramic tile and the "brrrrrr" out of marble flooring.

Concrete, stone, tile and wood floors can be warmed by pipes that carry heated water or mats that conduct electricity, which are affixed to the subflooring. Rather than heating an area with conventional forced hot air, radiant floor-heating systems not only warm the surface on which people walk, but that heat is eventually absorbed and radiated a house's contents as well.

Prevalent in Europe, Americans are warming to the usage of radiant heating systems, says Mark Eatherton, executive director of the Radiant Professionals Alliance (RPA), based in Mokena, Illinois. "Radiant heat is an even heat, unlike a forced-air heating system, which can have pockets of warmed air," he says. "Technological advances and product innovations have stepped up interest in radiant heating."

Using radiant heat to create a warmer home isn't new. The ancient Romans built hypocausts, which were floors raised on tile piers that were heated from beneath. Used initially for bathhouses about 100 B.C., hypocausts were a common feature of stone houses in colder parts of the Roman Empire.

While today's radiant heating systems are much more sophisticated, they operate on the same physical principles of energy transference -- the movement of heat from warm objects to colder ones. The Radiant Professionals Alliance is a trade organization of 250 members that primarily works with hydronic (water) radiant floor-heating systems. Cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) tubing is a long-lasting, flexible pipe that carries heated water beneath the floor's surface and doesn't corrode.

A boiler system heats the water, which is pumped through tubes in a closed-loop hydronic radiant floor system. Eatherton says a hydronic radiant system is easier to install during new construction, as opposed to retrofitting a system into an existing home. "A hydronic radiant floor-heating system must be specially designed for each house, but minimally, you want at least one linear foot of tubing per square footage in the home," he says. "When compared to forced-air heating systems, energy cost savings with radiant heat can average between 15 percent to 50 percent, depending on a home's location and how well it is built and insulated."

A qualified plumber should be contracted to install a hydronic system with industry-estimated costs between $8 to $10 per square foot for new construction. Loops of PEX tubing can be embedded in a concrete basement or placed between the floor joists in upper floors. Above-ground applications using radiant floor heating should have double the amount of insulation in walls and attics to maximize the warming effect. When the system is first turned on, floors may take a day to warm up to 75 degrees, but, once warmed, the heat is easily maintained.

A detraction is that a radiant floor heating system might be considered a redundancy, since duct work for air conditioning is often standard in home construction. But, Eatherton says, industry manufacturers are working to perfect radiant cooling systems coupled with air circulation.

If a homeowner wants to take the chill off the floor in a small area, an electric heated-floor system under stone or tile can be a creature comfort and is a preferable retrofit in an existing home. Electric mats or rolls are constructed of coils of heat resistance wires that are joined to a supporting material. These heating mats are designed to operate like an electric blanket under the floor. Bathroom floors can achieve a comfortable temperature in less than an hour and can be controlled by a programmable thermostat.

STEP Warmfloor is an innovative hybrid of an electric floor-warming system designed to heat an entire house. Manufactured by Electro Plastics Inc. near St. Louis, the product is a low-voltage polymer radiant heating system, which has thin wires that warm plastic, then radiates the heat at a temperature that is self-regulating.

"STEP Warmfloor's system cannot overheat because the black carbons in the plastic are semi-conductive to a maximum temperature of 85 degrees," says Monica Irgens, president of the company. "Our product runs on AC, using a 24-volt transformer, or DC current, such as a solar- or wind-powered source."

An electrician should connect the system to the power source, and Irgens estimates the installation of STEP Warmfloor to cost between $11 and $15 per square foot.

Radiant heating systems are heating up outside homes, too. Called "snowmelt" systems, these radiant heat assemblies are embedded under sidewalks and driveways. These systems work by heating snow-covered surfaces to 38-degrees, at which temperature, the precipitation evaporates.

A radiant heating system is an effective way to clear a snow-covered pathway without tearing up decorative concrete, stone or brick. Snowmelt systems can be both electrical or hydronic, with anti-freeze added to circulating water. Irgens says the STEP Warmfloor product can also be installed under rooftops, to prevent ice dams from forming near roof overhangs and gutters.

Educated consumers are turning up the heat on radiant heating systems, not only because of long-term energy savings, but because of the warmth they provide. "Radiant heat is like a blanket of comfort inside the home that you can only experience," Eatherton says. "When you step inside a home that has radiant heat, your body immediately senses a total, encompassing warmth."

Warm Up

-- STEP Warmfloor, Warmfloor.com, 877-783-7832 or 877-STEPTEC

-- Radiant Professionals Alliance, RadiantProfessionalsAlliance.org, 877-427-6601

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Old World painting techniques can lead to a stroke of sophistication in modern-day homes.

Jennifer Bertrand, artist and HGTV Design Star season three winner is spreading the ancient ways of plastering and painting walls into 21st-century homes.

"When we talk about painting techniques on walls, many wrongly think of the 1990s, when people were applying paints and glazes using sponges, rags and plastic bags," says the Olathe, Kansas, based designer. "I grew up in Europe, and fine decorative painting techniques that never go out of style can transform two-dimensional walls into three-dimensional surfaces, which bring a room to life."

Gold-leafing and fresco painting (mixing color pigments into wet plaster) are techniques Bertrand used in a new construction home built to bring the Old World feel of a Tuscan villa to the Midwest.

The Tuscan-style farmhouse with a richly layered, casual appeal is especially prevalent in the kitchen. Fine painting techniques radiate from the heart of the home onto plastered walls in saturated earth tones.

Plaster starts as a dry powder and is a mixture of natural ingredients -- most commonly clay, lime or gypsum -- that when mixed with water becomes a paste, which can be applied to an existing wall in layers. Natural pigments can be added into the plaster mixture, which makes the color permanent and part of the wall.

The home's plaster piece de resistance is located on the curvilinear wall in the dining room. Bertrand's hand-painted map of Italy is modeled after painted images in the Gallery of Maps room in the Vatican Museum. While the sandstone-colored plaster was still wet, Bertrand added green and blue pigments to color-block the land and sea. Personal touches were added with acrylic paints and dazzling detailed gold-leaf work.

It is befitting that Venetian plaster covers many of the walls in this Tuscan-inspired home, since it was the Italians -- most notably those from Venice -- who elevated plastering techniques to an art form. Venetian plaster is extremely strong and durable, with added color pigments that become part of the wall as it dries. The wet plaster -- mostly comprised of lime -- reacts with the carbon dioxide in the air, which turns it back to stone as it dries.

The home's music room really sings with inspiration from the Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, Italy, with trompe-l'oeil depictions of lemon trees in each corner. French for "deceive the eye," trompe-l'oeil is a painting technique that seeks to create realistic imagery.

Without painting herself into a corner with wall-to-wall projects, Bertrand and her husband, Chris, also decoratively distressed and painted cabinets for finer touches. A new range hood has Old World appeal in a Mediterranean tile motif with a painted patina.

"While there is an artisan skill set needed to decoratively paint in a home, you don't have to necessarily go big and bold," Bertrand says. "A limewash or whitewash on walls can bring a coastal calm into your home that has an underlying tone of luxe and more contemporary appeal."

As a homeowner, one of the most difficult tasks may be painting a picture of your decorative vision to an artist, says Sheryl Born, spokeswoman for the Society of Decorative Painters, based in Wichita, Kansas. Since the society's inception in the 1970s, it now has 11,000 decoratively painting members all over the world.

Born says one of the first steps can be to find an artist with your same sensibilities at a local chapter of the Society of Decorative Painters. "Ask for references, see examples of an artist's work and -- because every artist works differently -- put together a budget and ask for an estimate in writing," Born says. "Novices can even take decorative painting classes and try their hand at expressing themselves in their home."

Bertrand warns homeowners against painting a rosy picture on how easy decorative painting can be. "I love when homeowners are vested and want to do things themselves, but -- especially if it's a DIY project -- start small with a cabinet or piece of furniture," she says. "Don't be afraid to layer on multiple colors to add texture when painting. There's no depth to a wall that has sponge imprints in a single color, which just leads us back to the forgettable faux of the '90s again."

Strokes of Creativity

-- www.JenniferBertrand.com

-- Society of Decorative Painters, www.DecorativePainters.org, search "Chapters" for a nearby location.

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