Stage This Interior Design
Every season is a great season for showing off your beautiful home. Now that the weather is slowly cooling off, we can take a step back, take a breath in, and marvel at the late summer sunrise and sunset.
I was just reading one of my latest design magazines and a headline caught my attention.
It said: “Designs with you in mind.” Okay, you say, what grabbed your attention? Shouldn’t every design in my home be built with me in mind?
Some designers wish to create a space that will have their own personality written all over it. When I am hired to work with someone, I do an in-depth front interview with my client, to assess their needs, personalities, and design traits.
Then and only then will I take on the project. The mission is to give you a home that you absolutely love to come home to. What I want is not relevant, unless you ask my opinion one way or the other. Then I will give you pros and cons, but you are the final decision maker in this process.
Let’s look at the late evening sky as a great example. Is tonight’s sunset going to be the exact same as last night? The beauty is, depending on what temperatures have been going on in the stratosphere, we get a different look each night.
You are as different from your neighbor as each sunset we enjoy is, but we can play with the colors from our sunrises and sunsets to put some extraordinary colors in your home.
Having been a hands-on designer since I was seven, I love fabrics. I can be a kid in a candy store when I walk through a fabric showroom. I find so many unusual pieces when I am on a stroll. Taking this concept, if you find something stunning; you can incorporate it into a stretched canvas piece on the wall, create a hand quilted throw for the couch, or use it as table linens in your dining room.
The dining room is sometimes too big, and sometimes too small. You could add the color of the fabric as a backdrop on your serving piece wall, then coordinate table linens from the artwork of the fabric.
Sometimes a small intimate space suddenly feels larger with a vibrant large print on the wall.
I had a dear friend who at one time was the art director for J.C. Penney Co. What is an art director? It is the boss of the bosses for the display departments throughout a region. This man who was short in stature was tall on talent.
He used to call me and say, “Carol! We need to go shop in your showroom for just the right look I want for this season’s displays.” He was the first person who taught me, by example, to look at my beloved fabrics from a different perspective. To say this guy loved color and art more than myself was an understatement. He would keep extra pieces of 4×8 plywood around to create walls in the fabric he found in my stock.
Years later when I found myself designing showrooms for some of the biggest names in furniture, I would revert to what he taught me, shamelessly.
You bought your home because you fell in love with the city views. Get excited by having your friends over for a late summer’s eve meal in a dining room that revolves around the season’s color pallet.
So, let’s grab this late summer by the colorful fabrics offered in our local stores, and let’s get living!