One of the first challenges was the need to create multiple seating and sleeping areas so that the space could be used for entertaining as well as housing overnight guests. To achieve this we built Murphy beds inside one of the large tree armoires. This allowed us to keep as much floor space in the room but also provide the opportunity for sleeping accommodations if required.

Every designers dream job is to have a client who provides a blank space on which we can create freely without constant supervision or oversight. It is an elusive dream that comes along rarely because, after all, we are designing a space that the client will have to live daily with for years to come. Recently just such a job presented itself. Home owners Bob and Janice have been busy adding on two new 10,000 foot additions to their current home. One of the spaces that they hired us to design was a guest bedroom in the new cabana. With two sons away to college, Bob and Janice are anticipating having many overnight house guests so I was asked to design the room to sleep more than one person. The first thing I do before designing any space is ask God’s direction. For this space He downloaded the story “Tale of the Three Trees” as the inspiration. Once upon a mountaintop, three trees stood and dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up. Each of their dreams comes true in the most unexpected of ways. (See www.inver.org/ceantar/Learning_Circle/folkflorida.htm for the full story.) I met with Janice to discuss the concept and after showing her the tree armoire we had designed for our Safari Collection (http://www.emmanueldesigngroup.com/story.aspx#January), she asked me to design the room with a safari theme incorporated in as well.