Study THE CLIENTS: An energetic retired suburban couple who decided to build a new house in an "active adult" development. He had been an attorney and she was a nurse. THE SPACE: A study which opened to the front entry hall. It is the first room that visitors see when they enter the home. It has 9'-6" ceilings. All of the furniture had been ordered when they decided to add bookcases. CLIENT REQUIREMENTS: Storage for decorative items and as many books as possible Some closed storage as well Since the bookcase wall is the first thing seen, the WOW factor was important. Coordinate the unit to the wood colors in the new furniture which wasn't on site yet Keep costs down by staying with standard sized units as much as possible. SOLUTIONS: The storage requirements here were pretty easy to accommodate and a field trip to the furniture store helped us get the color right. The main challenge here was technical. We felt strongly that the units had to go to the ceiling to get the impact that the client wanted. Built-ins have to look built in, not like pieces of component furniture. We wanted each wall of cabinets to be made as complete as possible at the factory so we didn't have a lot of seams. The cabinet company directed us to keep the bookcase hutches at 60" high so each side could be made in one piece. This necessitated designing an 18" high crown treatment. The crown we designed was assembled from seven different standard mouldings by a very talented trim carpenter. Although the finished crown is large, it does not overpower the room because of the high ceilings. And the client tells us it really does make visitors say "wow" when they first see it. Back to other rooms...