Decor Score - Column by Rose Bennett Gilbert

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Surprise at the top of the stairs: scores of British royal portraits enliven an attic bedroom. Photo by Laren Resen, Courtesy of Filipacchi Publishing

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Decor Score: How to Make an Attic Bedroom Worth the Climb

Rose Bennett Gilbert

Q: My husband's niece will be living with us while she goes to grad school nearby. He has been doing over the attic for her bedroom -- paneling the ceiling and putting in a new engineered wood. Now it's my turn to decorate, and I don't know what to do with the slanted walls, etc. Any advice or examples would be a big help.

A: Here's a roomful of ideas, borrowed from an aptly titled book, "Style and Substance," by Margaret Russell and the other editors of Elle Decor (Filipacchi Publishing).

The white-cream color scheme smoothes out the beams and erratic architecture that comes with most attic spaces and makes the most of the limited light through typically tiny attic windows. Also, note the space-making furniture: a narrow bedside table, wall-mounted swing-arm lamps and the standing screen that softens the angle where the ceiling swoops down to the low side wall.

But what really makes the room worth the climb is that explosion of small pictures, amusing and compelling, hung like a staccato refrain all the way to the ceiling.

In this room, it's British royal portraits collected by Paul Donaher for his own bedroom (decorated with designer friend Nannette Brown). Your niece might prefer a gathering of friends' and family photos. Either way, it's a novel idea for adding a lot of life to a small, eccentric space.

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Q: Want to come home to a bit of American history?

A: The American furniture industry is making it easy. A number of manufacturers were offering reproductions or "re-imagined" versions of furnishings from historic sources during the fall market in High Point. What's good for your home is also good for the historic homes of America, which reap a share of the profits in exchange for the "inspiration."

The very first "first family," George and Martha Washington, would feel right at home in the chairs, sofas, benches and ottomans in the new Mount Vernon upholstery collection from Taylor King (www.taylorking.com).

Encore is the latest collaborator with Biltmore, the 1895 Vanderbilt estate in Asheville, N.C., still the largest home in America. Distributed by Sarreid Ltd., the Encore collection includes chairs, tables and accent pieces inspired by the gentleman's wing of the 250-room French Renaissance chateau overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains (www.biltmore.com).

Habersham (www.habershamhome.com), the company launched 37 years ago when a young Joyce Eddy started making pocketbooks out of old cigar boxes, now crafts furniture inspired by one of the most fabulous mansions anywhere, William Randolph Hearst's astonishing castle in San Simeon, Calif.

Copeland Furniture has been channeling Frank Lloyd Wright's furniture designs for the past three years with the approval of the Wright Foundation. Even the famously arrogant architect should approve of Copeland's rigid commitment to sustainable manufacturing polices at its plants in Bradford, Vt. (www.copelandfurniture.com).

Interior designer-turned-Emmy-winning-TV-personality Thom Filicia ("Dress My Nest," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy") pays homage not to a single house but to his native Upstate New York in his new collection for Vanguard Furniture (www.vanguardfurniture.com).

Born and educated in Syracuse, N.Y., (Syracuse University School of Art and Design), Filicia gives his highly original pieces names like Bordino table (after the hamlet where a gourmet market is located in an old church), Strathmore console (for the Strathmore enclave where homes rate listing on the National Register of Historic Places) and Mattydale headboard ("after the pick-up and drop-off location of my sleep away camp").

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Rose Bennett Gilbert is the co-author of "Manhattan Style," "Hampton Style," and five other books on interior design. To find out more about Rose Bennett Gilbert and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

This news arrived on: 11/16/2009

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