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Slanted Ceilings: An Opportunity for Serenity and Charming Interior Design | Mally Skok Design in WSJ
Jan
Mally Skok Design in Wall Street Journal Article | January 27, 2022 | By Nina Molina
A bed under the eaves, a cozy corner for reading, and four other ways to make the most of the odd spaces sloped ceilings create
IN DISNEY’S 1950 animated film “Cinderella,” the eponymous heroine is consigned to sleeping in an ostensibly punishing attic room. Despite dreary stone walls and rough-hewn floorboards, however, her little single bed tucked under the beams of a right-there roof looks kind of cozy. “Low ceilings create immediate intimacy,” said Brett Phillips, of High Street Homes in Fort Worth, Texas. And though some might find slanted ceilings a decorating challenge, Mr. Phillips roots for them. They “need to be embraced and celebrated, especially in second-story spaces where roof lines create interesting angles,” he said. Here, six ways to rescue the random spaces under a home’s eaves from disrepute.
Slot In a Seat
Mally Skok suggests that every work-from-home office incorporate a daybed or chaise to which one can “withdraw… when the emails come flooding in.” The interior designer followed her own advice, and conjured memories of her youth, when she created a “little nest right in the eaves” in her Lincoln, Mass., home, shown left. “When my sister and I were children, we would make tiny houses in nooks under the stairs or in broom closets,” she said of her South African childhood. In her Lincoln cranny, every wall was papered with a floral pattern inspired by 19th-century calico. Though you might imagine the effect would prove oppressive or busy, Ms. Skok said the “pattern soon becomes quite calming to the eye.”
Susan Taylor, of Los Angeles’s David Taylor Design, champions under-eave reading niches with built-in bookcases and a daybed. “It can be such a cozy spot if you have head clearance when sitting or standing up.”