Try a New Approach to Four-Poster Beds by Rose Bennett Gilbert on Creators.com

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Try a New Approach to Four-Poster Beds

Q: I've always yearned for a four-poster bed, but my husband is an architect who can't even abide the thought of traditional decorating. We're about to settle for a Shaker-style slim, black pencil-post bed. It has a beautiful, simple silhouette, so he's OK about it. But I'm thinking you may have other ideas.

A: I have several other suggestions for faux four-posters, all of them lifted from show houses and client projects done by some of the country's most inventive interior design professionals.

Take, for example, the sleight of hand Charles Pavarini III once applied to a Kips Bay Show House bedroom. By hanging curtains from the ceiling at the corners of the bed, he worked visual magic, creating the effect of a four-poster without a single post in sight. Pavarini used metallic fabrics for extra architectural umph, which might also appeal to your husband. See more at www.pavarinidesign.com.

I've also admired beds that wore "canopies" made from outdoor awnings, draperies hung on half-round rods, and swags and jabots mounted over the heads of the beds.

But the dream of a bed we show here merits a category all of its own. Designer Jamie Drake takes the traditional lit-clos (closed bed) of provincial France and brings it smashingly up-to-date in a big city bedroom once plagued with street noises and intrusive light. Instead of shoving the entire bed into a closet — the best definition of a lit-clos I know — Drake has encased just the button-tufted head of the bed, creating a cozy spot for reading and lounging that also blocks sound and provides privacy.

Small bedside tables hold lamps for intimate lighting; storage shelves and built-in overhead lighting encourage the illusion of a room-within-a-room. And thanks to Drake's famous extroverted palette, she creates a bright, colorful little "room." Sophisticated, too — which is why author Michael Lassell includes it in his new book, "Metropolitan Home Glamour" (Filipacchi Publishing).

This is the book to check out if you think sparkle and sophistication has succumbed to the craze for country casual decorating.

Lassell offers 200-plus pages of dazzling proof that we still swoon for the Hollywood glamour, chic and shine of crystal, satins and silks.

Q: What to put over my sofa in the living room? I tried a big mirror, which made the room look bigger, but it got boring. Then I hung a few old prints, but they looked too ditsy. Now that space is empty — I like it, but my husband is complaining.

A: You're not the only one struggling to justify that space over the sofa. For some reason, it's sacrosanct (the place of honor, the piece de resistance) in most living rooms. Which is odd, when you consider that the people sitting on the sofa never get to enjoy whatever is hanging on the wall behind them.

For that reason alone, I side with you. Leave the space blank and hang your most interesting art pieces where they can be admired, at least for a while. If the naked wall begins to gall you as well as your husband, then go looking for something large and really dramatic, say an elegant tapestry or an oversized poster framed up attractively.

Full disclosure: I lived for nearly 10 years with a bare over-sofa wall, largely because the rest of my living room was wall-to-wall with artwork and mirrors.

Only when I came home from Siena's Palio (ancient horse race) last summer with an enormous and attractive poster did I give up the "breathing space" of that blank spot. But now I never sit on the sofa itself; I'd rather be across the room admiring the artwork.

Rose Bennett Gilbert is the co-author of "Hampton Style" and associate editor of Country Decorating Ideas. 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.