The Entertaining Loft

" Hi! I'm Linda Kast."

" and I'm Jill Waage, and this is the space we designed for Decorating magazine"

" and Kitchen and Bath Ideas."

" Well, we started out with a large rectangular space that was about 1600, just over 1600 square feet, and we divided it up so that it has a large living-dining area, kitchen, 1 bedroom, 1 den, a master bath, and a powder room or a guest bath, that includes a laundry room. We envisioned a 40-something couple, who enjoyed travelling, the Arts. They were embracing the new Urbanism, living downtown."

" We thought about how they would be spending their time, moving back [time=0:01: into the city, simplifying their life. Not a lot of possessions around, but being able to really have the things around them, be special to them."

" I would say the design approach we took in this space was; keep it simple. There was a lot of paring down of things, and whenever there was a question of what material to use or what direction to go, we always looked at keeping things simple. Simplifying the lines and going with a very simple palette throughout."

" There's a fantastic decorating lesson for readers in this space as soon as you walk in the door. If you look at the carpet on the entryway, almost every color that appears of this entire space comes from that rug, and you can follow it in different ways throughout the space. It's a great way to show how you can unify multiple rooms in the same home using the color differently."

" In a loft space, one of the critical elements is having enough storage, so trying to combine simplicity with lots of storage was a real chore because you only have so many walls to use. So, what we ended up doing was incorporating in the kitchen a large island that's actually a different finish on the wood, so it looks like a stand-alone furniture piece, and then alongside that, in the dining room, we added another wall of cabinet, so that that was additional ancillary storage space. "

" Within this 1600 foot space [time=0:02:30]) that's very open for entertaining, there are great spaces where you can hide away and get privacy. It was very important when we went through the design process to have these intimate spaces within the large ones. In the den, you can pull the pocket doors close. The glass is frosted, so you're not distracted by what might be going on in the kitchen, but you can sit in there and do a little bit of work on the laptop and relax, where you can take a nap in there and just sort of be closed off a little bit."

" I think for our profile couple, I envisioned the big benefit to this space, in this loft-style living to them to be that they can, they're free to pursue their interests. It's a low maintenance space."

" I think one of the real fun factors of being in a loft, living in a loft space was the element of surprise. To have this huge open spaces with a lot of volume, but as you move from room to room, and from the public spaces to the private spaces, you get that sense of surprise that you didn't expect this kind of warmth and comfort to be possible in a loft unit."