Zen Appeal

It's a lot of fun and very rewarding to help empty-nesters figure out what to do with their space, now that the kids are gone. This is an area where you really need to spend time knowing and understanding the person's needs. The goal is to create a new space that meets their new lifestyle. In this situation the process started with converting the kid's bedrooms into more usable spaces for the homeowners. One bedroom was converted into an home office and the other one was converted into a quiet space away from the nightly TV shows. It seems that invariably one spouse will love watching TV while the other one can barely stand it. Funny how that happens that way. The one element that both of these room conversions had in common was that they needed to be used for guest sleeping areas.
When designing multi-purpose rooms, it is a great idea to put a Murphy Bed in the space if possible. For this homeowners quiet space we converted a yellow, over-stuffed girls room into a Zen space with very little furniture and room for reading or meditation. I love doing original designs for spaces and then seeing the piece come together in the shop. This wall bed I designed has a wider base on the bottom than the top giving it a trapezoidal structure. The Chinese coin motifs ( that look white in this wall bed picture) I found on a wrought iron display at Stein Mart and then had them cut out to use on the bed. The chest of drawers is alder wood painted black and bamboo rods tht I purchased at Pier One are used horizontally and vertically to adorn the front.
To complete the room I added a dragonfly window curtain using a bamboo rod as the curtain rod. The dragonfly fabric was also used on the cushion of her reading chair. The walls are painted with a gold metallic paint from Ralph Lauren except for the wall covered with tufted pale yellow fabric. The crown molding was painted the same color as the wall to give the room more height. The room was so much fun to design and it conveys just the right environment that was needed for the space.