Bruce and Linda Ryder took a problematic floor plan and turned it into something practical and beautiful with space and privacy for every member of their family.

The Ryders, who moved to a villa community in 2004, started by turning the intended living room into a library-office for Bruce. "We had no interest in having a living room qua living room," he says, because the one in their previous house went virtually unused.

The kids were fine: Jennifer enjoys a loft and bedroom on the upstairs half-story; Paul's bedroom is downstairs. But Linda lacked an office of her own. Most of the lower level (a walkout basement area) was a big open room, with the TV at one end and Linda's workspace and a bar area at the other. Quiet and privacy were at a premium.

It's not that the Ryders didn't initially consider building Linda an office. But they couldn't figure out a way to do it without closing off an entire end of the room, and losing the bar.

Then a friend with a good eye, a pad of graph paper and an appreciation for having a room of one's own sketched out a solution for the lower level: an office with French doors and two walls of built-in bookcases for both visual and practical appeal, along with a screened porch that extends the living area into the outdoors.

"That was the essential element, the French doors," Linda says. "They allowed the light and space to flow" from the outside. "Linda sold it to me," adds Bruce, "with the carrot of additional shelving space for my growing book and CD collection."

Linda's office holds her work furniture, along with opera posters and an antique pine cabinet filled with small treasures. Outside her window is a pocket garden, designed by Bill Minford of Sherwood's Forest, with an anchoring pink flowering dogwood, roses, hydrangeas and hostas.

That was Phase 1, done in 2006. For Phase 2, their friend sketched more shelves and cabinets for the opposite wall, along with space for a wide-screen TV; it was installed in 2008. By pure serendipity, the central pair of shelves exactly holds a 48-volume set of the complete works of Sir Walter Scott, purchased from a used-book store in Edinburgh.

All the designs were refined and executed by Randy Laufer of Laufer Woodworking in Maryland Heights. Laufer used alder, a knotty wood ideal for informal spaces that takes a good finish.

Meanwhile, the porch turned a homely leftover — a concrete pad with unsightly piers supporting the beams for a main-floor deck — into an outdoor room for entertaining friends or reading alone. Built-in benches provide seating and storage, and hide the piers. "There's something about enclosing the space that makes it more inviting," Linda says.

Along with his new shelves, Bruce likes "the way it's turned the bar area into a more intimate, inviting spot. Instead of a bar at the end of a cavernous room, this gives us places for different conversations."

Says Linda, "I think we've taken something ordinary, and made it interesting."