The new Ronald McDonald House has 28 bedrooms, and each bedroom has two donated Sleep Number beds and durable comforters that can withstand numerous washings.

A.E. Araiza / Arizona Daily Star

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As design challenges go, this was a biggie. Members of the American Society of Interior Designers' Arizona South Chapter were used to working with more intimate spaces — and more generous budgets.

They were asked to create a cozy, welcoming living space out of an area of 24,000 square feet, one that would not only be a surrogate home for families, but at the same time comply with issues like fire safety and wheelchair access on the scale of a large hotel. They also had to tackle the sorts of health and cleanliness rules that might be imposed on a hospital. And all on a budget of $4 to $5 a square foot — a fifth of what these interior designers are used to.

The project was the new Ronald McDonald House on North Campbell Avenue, which houses families of children undergoing long-term or outpatient medical care.

After 26 years in an 11,000-square-foot building on East Speedway, one with additions, inadequate public and kitchen space, and a lot of having to make do, the new facility seemed past due.

"We were turning away 250 families a year, and there was only room for 12 people to eat at a time. Families were eating in shifts," says Erin McIntire, the charity's director of development, of the old house.

And of the new one, Sharmin Pool-Bak, interior designer and ASID committee member for the project, says: "The challenge was to make it feel as comfortable and residential as possible in what is ultimately a commercial setting."

The space would accommodate not only 28 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, but kid-friendly play areas, adult-friendly study nooks, and a kitchen and dining room to blow the last one out of the water: seven refrigerators, three ranges, four dishwashers and seating for up to 75 people at a time.

To stick to the strict budget, ASID designers — working for free — sought help from artists, colleges and high schools for the art that decorates much of the wall space, and retailers and suppliers for donations and good deals on furniture and fixtures.

Pool-Bak and fellow Tucson designers Kathryn Gastelum and Anne Sheffer stuck to a desert-inspired palette of muted reds, yellows and oranges, and occasionally broke out into bright pinks, greens or blues for playrooms or a laundry room.

The art helps break up long corridors that can't help but resemble a hotel. The furniture — ranging from black leather and smartly upholstered armchairs, to more utilitarian stackable kitchen chairs and fold-up conference room tables — wouldn't look out of place in any home.

In this home, the overwhelming theme is fun. Photographs by some of the high school students are arty close-ups of a yo-yo or toy bricks. Light fittings in the dining and play areas are suspended from huge, cut-out cloud shapes. The designers had custom designs worked into parts of the flooring in public areas — a soap box and bubbles on the floor of a laundry room; and a hamburger and ice cream sundae underfoot in the dining room — by local artist Cindy Johnson.

The team also, cleverly, anticipated the limitations of tired, slightly stressed and inherently messy families. Pool-Bak tells how she "just knew" nobody would take the time to open or shut window shades in the sunny upper-level public area of the isolation wing, a place for families of sicker children who require more privacy. So they settled for almost-see-through solar shades from Hunter Douglas that can be down all the time without affecting the light stream. Likewise, they went for carpet tiles, which can be moved around or replaced according to wear and tear, and hard-wearing Marmoleum (a natural-made vinyl-look flooring) for the aforementioned customized public areas.

The house cost $4.5 million (there's still around $600,000 to be raised to pay off the mortgage) and is one of almost 300 Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide. Each operates as its own separate, nonprofit organization, run by a volunteer board of directors, and funded by private and charitable donations (a donor wall outside the Tucson house is covered with tile plaques from people who gifted money). McDonald's provides seed money for each new house and is involved in fundraisers, but, says McIntire, provides just 10 percent of general funding.

The link to Ronald McDonald has more to do with heritage and branding, she says. With a life-size Ronald McDonald figure reclining on a bench at the entrance, and his outline in the brightly colored fence that surrounds the property, the Tucson house is a place that's instantly welcoming for kids.

Donations keep coming; the latest addition of a Wii is a big hit. But there are still items on their wish list — like a play structure for the still fairly empty backyard. "With the economic downturn, we're hurting, too," says McIntire.