Bedroom

To free up space, beds, shelves, and a sofa appear to be built into the wall. To accommodate the gentle curve of the "unit," the architects selected birch plywood. A large window is opposite of the beds.

When not in use as the headboard, the large redwood slab folds down to become a desk.

Wenes and Lens conceptualized a gradation of white to gray hues for the walls of the 1,500-square-foot gallery into the 4,000-square-foot home, culminating in a deep gray for the master bedroom. The room is reserved for meaningful pieces from the couple’s collection, such as a figure they found at a market in Beijing and lamps by artists Wenes represents.

“Two-bedroom apartments are coveted in Manhattan, but the reality is that we are just two people, and the second bedroom had become neglected storage space,” Fontanez says. Combining the two into one reaped big rewards. “Now we wake up to a row of four windows and a variety of birds singing,” Russell says.

In the master bedroom, a small, cramped closet was replaced with a wardrobe that is partially obscured by a slatted wooden screen that was built by Metalworks & Design Studio of Seattle. "The idea was you see through it, so in a sense it doesn't feel like a small space," Smith says.

Two bedrooms separated by sliding doors occupy the partial second story.

Light streams into the bedroom through walls of floor-to-ceiling glass. The windows are triple-glazed, creating a tight, eco-friendly seal.