Cangin also favors hushed hues in the boudoir, colors that don't clamor for attention. She dressed the bedroom in creamy neutrals and muted shades of sand. She intensified that palette in an adjoining sitting room, painting the wall cappuccino brown and bringing in a set of comfy leather club chairs. "Sitting rooms are great if one person want to go to sleep and another wants to watch TV," Cangin says.
If the television must be placed in the bedroom it's better to keep it behind closed doors to mask the jarring presence of the cold black box. These days, there are almost as many storage options as cable channels, ranging from a modified closet to cabinetry installed above a fireplace. A television can be stowed in an armoire or hidden behind a curtain, like an old-fashioned cinema screen. If there's a closet in the adjoining room, a TV can be set into the wall and hidden behind a painting mounted on hinges.
Leavitt took the philosophy a step further by banishing the tube altogether, in keeping with the tranquil mood of the space. "This is a restful place, where there's no intrusion from the world," she says.
But unconfined televisions and electronics aren't the only intruders creeping into bedrooms and robbing inhabitants of rest. Perhaps the biggest deterrent to a good night's sleep is clutter -- stacks of magazines, loose change, jewelry, shoes and the occasional water glass. One strategy is to start with a bedroom that is accessorized sparsely. Weed out on a regular basis. And be rigorous; this is one time when tenderness has no place in the bedroom. "I've been unloading since I moved two years ago," Leavitt says. "I hold things up, look at them and ask myself, 'Do I really care about this?'"
She selected several pieces of art with the same discerning eye. A Japanese wood-block print was discovered on a business trip to Chicago. A collage was spotted at an art festival at Rittenhouse Square. She carried home a subtly textured objet d'art of banana bark from Hawaii. Raku pottery in a spectacular, fire-borne glaze completes the look.
MAIN LINE TODAY
November 2002
