View, function should dictate placement

I confess; touring model homes is not my favorite thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with such a pastime, but at this stage in my career there’s not much that I haven’t seen or worked with in my designs for furniture and interiors.

Nonetheless, when a client is so inclined, I feel obliged to put my personal feelings aside if doing so will help us to solidify a design plan or resolve some unanswered questions. And so I recently found myself accompanying a long-time client through the model homes of a gated community in which he had purchased a home on a prime lot with a magnificent view of surrounding mountains and the most serene and picturesque lake you could possibly imagine. The chief objective of our tour was to finalize a plan for the master bedroom, which unfortunately suffered the same deficiencies I’ve seen in so many homes and for too many years.

The master bedroom offered up nice long walls on two sides of the space, a wall of sliding glass doors on the far wall with that gorgeous view and a fireplace, as well as a shorter wall opposite that which was broken by the entrance to the master bath area. It was sad and typical of so many architects, who build from “outside in,” rather than a designer, who will build from “inside out.”

Long walls are great for furniture placement, of course. All of the models we saw that day went down the expected path of utilizing either of those two long walls for the bed and night tables. What a missed opportunity. To have to lie in bed facing the opposite wall and then turn your head sideways every time you want to look out the window or stare at the fireplace is dreadful, no?

And yet I have encountered so many homes with this exact floor plan; I always come away shaking my head and, for the life of me, not understanding why homeowners settle for this kind of setup.

Thank goodness that I had worked with this client in the past and that he and his wife trusted my instincts and designer’s eye for the right thing to do. They fully understood when I told them they’d be “missing the show” by following the lead of the models’ design.

From the moment I first walked into their space and came face to face with their glorious view I knew what I wanted to do — and what I had to do — in order to make their bedroom everything I knew it could be. I explained my concept of floating the new custom bed that I would be designing for them smack in the middle of their room. It would be placed directly in front of the patio doors so that they would be able to enjoy the up/down plasma TV at the foot of their bed, the fireplace and the greenery, lake and mountains beyond without ever having to turn their head sideways — unlike their neighbors who would be forever envious of them and wonder why they hadn’t thought of this concept.

The clients barely paused to look at each other before they smiled. I could see the light bulbs going on in their heads as they immediately understood my unusual proposal. Once we were all on the same page, the pieces of the puzzle fell quickly into place.

I explained to them that the bed would be centered on a carpeted platform in order to maximize the view. And because they needed storage space, I would design a totally self-contained bed with drawers on the backside of the headboard that would appear as an angled chest and be the first thing you would see upon entering the room.

Night tables would be built-in on either side of the bed with fold-out task lighting above. The gentleman’s side would feature a touch-latch drawer that would conceal the DVD player, while the TV would be hidden at the foot of the bed in a cabinet that was an integral part of the overall design.

They would be able to press a button to open and close the drapes and another to work the fireplace. We would add a built-in chest of drawers in the same finish on one of the long walls to complement the bed and give them additional storage space. And finally, the walls on either side would feature large abstract paintings from their collection.

Placement of furniture in a room is fundamental and can lead to amazing results if you don’t fall into the trap of looking but not really seeing. Remember that with good design, form always follows function, as in the example of my bedroom design.

Even if your space isn’t quite large enough to center a bed, try to at least angle it and/or place it on a step-up platform. Relatively simple changes like these can result in a whole new view of the world outside your window.

Stephen Leon is president of Soleil Design International and has been designing and manufacturing custom furniture and cabinetry for more than 25 years, along with his accomplishments in interior design. He has served on the board of directors of the Central California/Nevada Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers. Questions can be sent to soleildesign@cox.net.