If your aesthetic favors gleaming gold filigree, intricate tapestries, richer-than-rich textiles, and how-did-anyone-even-think-of-this attention to detail, you might lose your head over Marc and Cindy Moon’s recent bedroom renovation: a perfectly executed study in Louis XV.
After years of gathering inspiration from stays at luxurious, neo-classical Parisian hotels, the couple enlisted their longtime interior decorator, Tom Manche, to turn their drab bedroom into a master suited for the King himself. And it all began with a desk.
“We found this desk and thought this is just what we’re looking for,” Cindy explains. For years, the couple had talked about and considered making the change, but the time was never quite right.
“But when we found that desk,” at The Refined Room, “a few months later all of these pieces started popping up at this antique shop,” she says excitedly. They discovered matching marble-topped, solid-wood side tables in two unrelated booths at Warson Woods Antique Mall. “Then we found this incredible chest,” her favorite piece in the room.
“And I said ‘Cindy…’” Tom recalls, “I know you don’t want to start this yet. But you don’t find this all the time.” Six weeks and a rainbow’s variety of fabric later, the years of dreaming became unbelievably real.
With help from DeirDre Rohr of Crazy Walls — who hand-mixed and painted the teal interior finished with a wash of textured bronze — and his mysterious textile genius, known only as “Ruth,” who sewed, built, and pressed every fabric in the room, Tom transformed the space.
“My work as a whole is very detailed,” he explains. “I think a room is defined by the detail, and everything I chose had to be just right,” from the garden statue in the entryway to the polished gold frontispiece of the bed canopy. “Many times, people will walk into a room and say ‘I love this, but I’m not quite sure why.’ For me, I want it to be the paint, the fabric, the small pieces on the bookshelf… the more detail, the more exciting.” And as only a professional can, Tom tied the new, fresh details in with the tchotchkes Cindy and Marc already had.
“He’s adaptable,” Marc says. “And he’s easy,” Cindy adds, “I just tell him what we want and he already knows exactly what we like… he never says no, but he’ll be very honest if he doesn’t think something is going to work.”
Louis XV isn’t what works for everyone, as Tom will readily admit, “But I’m detail-oriented” he says, describing himself in one word. “You hire the best doctor, you hire the best lawyer; you hire the best designer. You hire me for my knowledge and professionalism, and that comes through in the detail.”
Resources
Designer: Tom Manche Interiors, 314-993-2700
Desk: The Refined Room, 314-962-7666
Wood Side Tables: Warson Woods Antique Mall, 314-909-0123
Paint/Finishes: DeirDre Rohr, Crazy Walls, 314-265-7762
