Short path from plans to completion

How does an initial concept become a finished room? Christos Joannides of Idea Space Design in Beverly Hills credits Keyshawn Johnson’s decisiveness for allowing the process to unfold quickly.

“He is not one to mince words,” Joannides says. “If he doesn’t like something, he just says so.”

Presentation boards with room renderings and samples of materials helped the designer and client finalize the look and the budget. Though there were compromises, the finished master bedroom shown here is remarkably similar to the rendering. Among the changes:

Because the remaining bedrooms are dedicated to Johnson’s children, he and Joannides added a work space with a desk and a reissue of the 1969 Eames Soft Pad chair made of polished aluminum and upholstered in black leather.

The headboard was drawn with leather upholstery set into a chocolate-stained alder frame. “It was conceived as being much taller than the height of a traditional headboard to emphasize the 10-foot ceiling, which is not the norm in newly constructed condos,” Joannides says.

At Johnson’s request, the finished headboard was scaled down significantly.

Johnson also declined to add the bench drawn at the foot of the bed — a piece that the design team had suggested for laying out bedcovers or a change of clothing.

Though the drawers on the night stands echoed the zebrawood paneling, Johnson nixed drum shade pendant lights over each table that mimicked the fixture in the dining room. He opted for carved wooden column table lamps instead.

“We designed the pendants with separate dimmers and switches that could have been wired into the wall or nightstand, so that each person could control the light on their side of the bed,” Joannides says. “Keyshawn didn’t want them figuring into his budget. Everybody draws the line somewhere.”

— David A. Keeps