Robin Leavitt's bedroom is an airy retreat that encompasses the entire third floor of her Philadelphia townhouse. It was also the highest priority for Leavitt, who chose to decorate her serene sanctuary before tackling any other room in her home.
        "As much as I love having company, it was more important to me to have a wonderful place to rest than it was to have a dining room," she says. "So I started at the top of the house and worked my way down."
        Eileen Devine, the Wayne designer who decorated Leavitt's townhouse, encourages clients to lavish as much attention on private places in their homes as they do on the public space. "A master bedroom should be a peaceful environment, whether it's a solitary retreat or a place for couples to re-connect," she says.

        Leavitt's bedroom is minimalist in feeling, with a pale green palette, Shaker-inspired furniture, a few pieces of meaningful art and a vaulted ceiling that creates the ambience of an urban loft. "It's very calming, very natural, very organic," she says. "I call it may Zen room."
        Yet there are tactile indulgences in the linen panels of a shoji screen, the satin stripes of a pillow trimmed in fringe, the subtle leaf pattern on the sage wall-to-wall carpet. "All the things you're going to touch should feel good and be of the highest quality," says Devine, owner of Devine Designs.
        While floors of wood and stone are popular in such gathering spaces as foyers, kitchens and family rooms, wall-to-wall rugs remain popular in bedrooms partly because they are quiet.