10 a.m. The room is literally swept dean of all furniture, art, and acces sories. Everything is piled in adjacent rooms and hallways to give Chandler a blank slate as he puts his theories into practice, rebuilding the room, one item at a time. "This is the beginning of the process, which entails making the furnishings relate to the fixed background—the walls, the windows, the fireplace—the things over which we have no control. Once those are denned, they become a part of the design, and the equation creates a certain peacefulness," he says.
   11 a.m. The emphasis shifts to what Chandler calls the springboard pieces, the largest of which he places first. Instead of the sofa against the long wall, he positions it at the far end of the room facing the fireplace. A 19th-century commode takes center stage against the empty long wall, The trumeau that was once above the commode now is elevated atop the mantel. Chandler rekindles the life within the room, piece by piece. He returns frequently for a reality check at the primary point of reference, the room's main entrance.
   Noon. "With the bones of the room now in place, Chandler turns to the art. "Art is one of the areas where we hone in on the client's personality, within the parameters of the newly restructured room," he says. A contemporary 6-by-10-foot oil painting previously hung above the sofa is not making the cut. "It's not that it's too overpowering, it's just that once the furniture is placed, there is logistically no place left for it," he says. Instead, Chandler picks from among a half-dozen other canvases, careful to mix traditional with modern, balancing the large with the small.
        "I like to mix the best of the old

with the best of the new, particularly with this young couple who seem al- ready to identify with that combina- tion. I found that exciting and wanted to intensify it," he says.
   1 p.m. In Chandler's initial survey of the home's furnishings, he found several pieces he now introduces into the living room. A long narrow wood table from an upstairs hall is centered behind the sofa, and an upholstered chair from an upstairs bedroom completes the vignette. Four colorful, exotic spirit sticks, once occupying a corner of the foyer, are now reunited at the mantel. And the mantel, once understated as a surface, now becomes an altar of a variety of icons collected from throughout the house.  A table that was previously skirted and relegated to a corner spot in the den has been unveiled and placed in the center of the room to create a conversation area.
   2 p.m. Chandler turns now to a
myriad of details—the important tran-
 

sitions from one element to the next. The goal for lighting is a variety of sources from shaded table lamps and shaded floor lamps to upward spot lighting, candles, and the all- important fireplace. The lighting serves to emphasize the individual vignettes and yet keep them united, Chandler says.
   For accessories, Chandler looks to a combination of textures to build balance. He pulls thick leather-bound books from the shelves in the adjoin-ing billiard room and stacks them on tables and beside chairs to create warm, casual settings. Occasional tables figure prominently as important punctuation to a Chandler room. "A room achieves a high level of comfort once each prospective guest has access to a flat surface," Chandler theorizes. Small tables—round, square, or irregularly shaped—will fit the bill.
   3 p.m. With a few nooks and cran- nies still unfinished and having ex- hausted the inventory from within the
 

house, Chandler sends his scouts to a variety of shops on Magazine Street. On the shopping list: a high-tech reading lamp, a cane bench, a gilded French Provincial chair to pull up to the round table at the center of the room. And, oh yes, a collection of an- tique magnifying glasses to place atop the open atlas to complete a desktop theme behind the sofa.
   While the troops are out shopping, Chandler fills in with a few items he has brought with him from his own shop, Elements of Design, in Little Rock. A round, ornate wood-framed beveled mirror is raised above the commode; an oversized flambe bowl adds focus to the round table at the center of the room; and an upholstered skirted ottoman slips easily under the round table to add to the potential of an inviting seating area.
   "Some things just fit wherever you put them," Chandler says, noting the versatility of a few good props. "We call it hypothetical shopping. These are