Bedrooms [antikvár]

I i 1 ;' ' . ' 'uvHLnINTRODUCTIONBEDROOMS ARE FOR DREAMINGThe wardrobe is filled with linen There are even moonbeams which I can unfoldCalifornia bedrooms, at their best, transcend design and architecture and fulfil the great human need for a retreat, for a place that nurtures daydreaming, for a return to tranquility. And so every page of this book is filled with pragmatic advice and problem solving balanced with encouragement to create a sanctuary and a private room away from the world. Enthusiastic dreamers and passionate travelers, top interior designers, and architects in California apply their restless imaginations and generous spirits to creating the bedroom as a refuge, so that a third of the day is spent at peace. Whether gifted by their clients with beautifully proportioned and graceful interior architecture, or faced with a bland, boxy bedroom, they cast far and wide in the collective memory for inspiration. Designs from the past always inform California interiors. Sometimes a Gustavian palace ballroom suggests a color scheme. Or a Jean-Michel Frank or Ruhlmann chair, chic and sensuous, is transmuted into a dressing table chair. A Fred Astaire film, a boat ride on Lake Bellagio, a Tuscan afternoon, or a couture collection can all quick-1 en the pulse and offer design inspiration. The best bedrooms have a quiet, timeless quality, a universal poetry. Michael Smith returned from explorations in Paris and fashioned a cosmopolitan bedroom. Barbara Barry insists on Egyptian cotton sheets white only. Kate Stamps loves four-posters and vintage textiles. Trust your own taste. Trendiness is to be avoided. Bedrooms have a daytime life, too. They should have a cozy armchair near the windows, where escapees from care can snooze like a cat in the late afternoon sun or gaze over the garden or the bay. Everything should be at hand the slippers and wraps, a simple beeswax candle, a pencil and paper, a CD player, a jolly bunch of garden jonquils. ^ But most of all, a fine and wonderful bedroom is one in which romance, dreams, and fantasies are but an eyelid's closing away. No intimate detail is too small. The mattress comforts and soothes the body at day's end. In the darkness, sheets gently wrap and protect. Flowers and fragrance freshen the air and uplift the spirit. Sounds fade. ^ Hush, night falls. The world disappears. The bedroom is transmuted into a place for dreaming, opposite In Healdsburg,in Northern California.Wade and Myra Hoefer have created their own sweet retreat.They've hidden the handcrafted bed behind favorite objects and flowers, and dressed it with Russian linens.The curved ceiling and muted light give the room a lofty, spiritual feeling.