From Hectic to Heaven

After: Update with pale colors, and find a place for all that high-tech equipment. The StairMaster and clothes steamer are moved out. The bed, upholstered in wheat-colored silk, with pillows in watery iridescent tones, and a sea grass rug make the room an oasis of calm.

The solution: Out went the rug, and in its place is wheat green sea grass, an instant visual soother. The pediment is out, too, along with those blowsy roses. Stylist Suzanne Shaker upholstered the bed in wheat-colored Thai silk and added iridescent silk pillows in tones of green.

Amy had collected a small gallery's worth of "bad waterfall paintings" and other watery images. Suzanne snagged every one, massing most on a single wall of the bedroom. Angular blond cabinets were separated and set against different walls, the steamer and the StairMaster rolled into another room. There's a basket for that hair dryer now, and a neat stack of linen boxes, each with its own tiny drawer, holds the CD collection. The television and stereo were swept below the room's radar onto a new black steel table. What was once a jangle of wires and high-tech equipment now looks like a kind of altar.