Airy studio also serves as guest room

Sunset, April, 1988

Airy studio also serves as guest room

Sew, sleep, or watch TV: you can do all three in this airy studio-guest room added to the back of Katherine and Richard Wilson's house in Redding, California. A professional clothing designer, Mrs. Wilson needed a carefully organized workspace and abundant natural light, but she also wanted the room to be an informal retreat for other members of the family.

Taking his cue from the moderne style of the existing stucco bungalow, architect Ronald Beyer kept the 13- by 19-foot studio spare, geometric, and open. Entered from its own quarry-tile patio or from inside the house, the addition contains a single two-story room. At one end, a sleeping loft sits atop a walk-in storage closet that has been plumbed for a future bathroom. The loft projects 2 feet beyond the closet to allow room for a pull-down ladder and help frame a display wall.

At the heart of the main space is a 5- by 8-foot island containing both an L-shaped sewing desk (supported on file drawers) and a narrow bed that's also a daytime couch. Two 9-foot-wide clerestory bands and one 9-foot-wide, six-paned window face west and north, flooding the room with light.

"The design is almost too successful," says Mrs. Wilson. "It's a real temptation just to look out the window at the changing garden and not get my work done."

Photo: Gridwork fence, echoing window pattern, frames patio entrance to new studio addition at the back of existing house

Photo: Behind fold-down loft ladder, closet hides TV, which rolls out to face built-in couch. L-shaped counter wraps around couch to create sewing and display surface