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The stair­case con­ceals ex­ten­sive stor­age space. There is an en­tire snack bar for the kids tucked un­der there, as well as room for games and toys. A re­cessed handrail is carved into the wall. "The cove light­ing acts like a per­fect high­lighter in the neg­a­tive space," Chin says.
Some­times you have to look very closely to even no­tice the stor­age. For ex­am­ple, a wall of stream­lined cab­i­nets pro­vides plenty of stor­age with­out ap­pear­ing bulky; the re­cessed niche serves as a wet bar and buf­fet. The stat­u­ary bronze back­splash and cove light­ing punc­tu­ate this area and high­light the play be­tween pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive space. The din­ing ta­ble's sculp­tural legs play off the kitchen's stain­less steel is­land. Din­ing ta­ble: Synap­sis by Jean Marie Mas­saud for Porro
1. Level Change There is no wall be­tween this din­ing area and the ad­ja­cent space; a few steps dif­fer­en­ti­ate the two ar­eas. A level change can des­ig­nate zones in an open plan and help to set up a hi­er­ar­chy of spa­ces.
2. Over­head El­e­ment In this room there is a change in ma­te­rial at the ceil­ing level, while the floor­ing stays con­sis­tent. This ma­te­rial change is a smart vis­ual way to de­lin­eate zones in a home with an open floor plan.
Use your wall space for stor­ing al­most ev­ery­thing. I can't say enough about the ben­e­fits of the Mur­phy bed. More com­fort­able than the ubiq­ui­tous sleeper sofa, the Mur­phy bed fold­ing up against the wall is the best op­tion for get­ting that spare bed out of the way and giv­ing you max­i­mum floor space for your of­fice. No­tice that even the lit­tle side ta­ble by the bed will slide back in to the dis­play shelv­ing on the wall. Wall stor­age above the desk gives you room for tools and ma­te­ri­als for other ac­tiv­i­ties with­out tak­ing up floor space.
Think big. Daniel Burnham, the great 19th-century Chicago architect, once said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.”
Q