Cavernous Master Bedroom Becomes Their Suite Dream

Who doesn’t have a room that could use a professional face lift? My husband and I recently won the opportunity for one when we submitted the high bid at a live auction for a school fund-raiser. The prize was a “dream room” by a team that included the talents and resources of five local home improvement experts.

The first part of our package was 10 hours of interior design consultation by James Charles of Europa Design Group in Long Beach. Charles pegged our 3-year-old San Juan Capistrano home as Californian with a European flair, and we agreed that he would continue that direction in the room we picked to redo, our master suite, which includes the bedroom, a sitting area and bathroom.

Pluses were the views--pastoral hillside off the bedroom, a canyon view off the bathroom--the cherry wood cabinetry and our few furnishings (a bedroom set).

Minuses were the all-white walls, minimal window treatments, awkward proportions and, in the bath, low-quality mirrors and tacky light fixtures.

Making appearances worse, the lights weren’t centered over the mirrors, which weren’t centered over the sinks, and the medicine chest was an eyesore. “The bathroom functions, but nothing here endears you,” he said.

The suite’s large size, which I’d always viewed as a plus, proved the biggest challenge for the crew. Though the master suite should be the most intimate in the house, this one--a rectangular space running 50 feet from the top of the bedroom to the end of the bath--felt cold and cavernous. “They never throw space around like this in Europe,” said Charles, who hails from London and has worked in Paris for the likes of Tina Turner and the sultan of Brunei.

To make the space more intimate, Charles selected a soft buttery-yellow shade of paint for the bedroom walls and apricot-and-henna-striped wallpaper, designed to resemble antique plaster, for the bathroom. For fabrics, he chose a variety of textures in deep shades of rust, gold, azure and burgundy, a welcome change from the previous taupe-and-oatmeal color palette.

With the design direction set, we started cashing in other parts of our prize: $300 worth of paint from Dunn-Edwards Paints; painting services from Custom Coatings & Finishes of Laguna Niguel; up to 60 linear feet of 6-inch crown molding and wallpaper installation from Jarman’s Custom Wallcovering of Coto de Caza, and faux finishing for one accent wall, compliments of Irvine artist Eric Hill.

After painting the room, leaving the baseboards and casings in white enamel for contrast, we had enough credit left to paint the playroom. Because crown moldings didn’t seem to work in the suite, we used them in the family room instead.

Rather than faux finishing a wall, we applied Hill’s talents to the bedroom’s white plaster fireplace. Charles found a rough stone that he liked, and Hill applied a stone-looking finish around the fireplace. Hill then faux finished the mantel to look like highly polished mahogany, which tied in the wood furniture and the bath’s cherry cabinetry.

To redo the master bath, we needed a subcontractor not included in the package. Charles was willing to leave the existing wall-to-wall carpet. But after thinking it through, my husband and I decided that if this really was going to be our dream room, we wanted stone.

After doing our stone homework, we chose Anaheim Stone & Tile to install a light neutral travertine on the floor, around the Jacuzzi tub, on the sink tops and back splashes and in the shower. For interest, we added borders and diamond accents of rojo Alicante marble, a rusty red shade that complements the color scheme.

Although the stonework doubled the expenditure, delayed the project six months and required us to live through weeks of dust, workmen and jack hammering, the improvement was huge.

With the bathroom finished and the budget blown, we proceeded slowly to finish the interiors, adding new drapery, bedding and pillows.

Soon after, two upholstered chairs, an ottoman and an area rug arrived for the sitting area around the fireplace, in what before had been a neglected space between the bed and bath.

As the three-month project turned into a 12-month one, Charles graciously kept guiding me along.

By capitalizing on his design direction and by handling much of the purchasing, fabrication and installation of the project’s components d

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Marnell Jameson is a San Juan Capistrano freelance writer.