The space we live in says a lot about us as a person, but sometimes it ends up translating the wrong message. For example, the fact that you’re an eclectic, worldly traveler might be disguised by the reality that your living space is an unorganized collection of foreign curios more numerous and varied than the wares at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. Or maybe you married someone with a totally different aesthetic, and what looks like a blatant disregard for continuity in design in your home is actually an ongoing debate about contemporary style versus country cottage charm. Whatever the dilemma, it is possible to organize and merge an array of items and tastes in décor under one roof. With a little help from professional interior designers and a couple of distinctive local home shops, Chronogram culled expert advice to have your space looking polished and purposeful while still maintaining a sense of diversity.
Taking Stock
The first step to creating a cohesive look in your home is to take an inventory of what you already have. Determine which items you’ll be using in the space and take note of their size, shape, and color. Those three characteristics are the building blocks of design, says Helen Piteo-Varrone of Helen Piteo Interiors in Wappingers Falls. “If you take those elements and try to match the personalities of those aspects in lieu of particular styles, it can work,” she says.
Examine all the pieces you want to incorporate into your home. Sometimes items that seem like polar opposites on first glance can actually work well together and set each other off. Piteo-Varrone uses a carved French antique chair and a rustic copper side table from Montana as an example. The two seemingly disparate pieces can actually complement each other if the color tones are similar and the lines are contoured right. “It’s really not about the style per se, it’s about taking each individual piece and grouping it together with something that complements its size, color, and shape,” she says. “That really comes into play with almost everything we do in design.”
At this point, you might want to start trying to refine what you have. Jane Henderson, an interior designer with FW Interior Design in Wappingers Falls, says that she’ll ask her clients to evaluate which pieces they can’t live without. “Once you decide what pieces are crucial, it creates a road map for the rest of the design and can start to dictate a style,” she explains, “for example, combining a family antique chest with a midcentury modern mirror.”
Scaling back may not be very fun, but Laura Gould, a former interior designer who now owns the shop Sanctuary Home in downtown Nyack, says some editing may be necessary. “You have to find what doesn’t work,” she says, and then eliminate it from your design plans. If you live with a significant other or have a housemate, this is the time when you should try to find a common ground or accept some compromise to best fuse your decorating personalities. When in doubt, Gould recommends letting the space offer cues. “Different spaces dictate the style,” she says. “You have to let that speak to you and be honest enough to see what the vision is through the style of the home and the space.”
Gould went through this process when she and her husband moved from a George Washington-era home filled with Victorian touches to a duplication of an Austrian chateau that was more suited to another style. But don’t think that the some of the European aspects of her new home means that she can only furnish it with items that represent that part of the world—she mixed and matched contemporary custom lighting with the European carved woodwork, Mongolian and Tibetan chests, and exotic Moroccan furniture made with camel bone and tooled metal.
To help further define the desired end result, both Piteo-Varrone and Henderson often ask their clients to create a folder of images from magazines or catalogs that typify the kind of space they want to create. This gives clues as to what color schemes are preferred, what lines and curves are favored on furniture, and whether you like rooms that are sparse in accessory or more full. “This exercise gives me some direction as a designer and it can serve the same purpose for anyone trying to tackle a DIY project,” says Henderson.
Alternately, Gould recommends choosing three pieces that you feel define your style, and using them to guide color choices, furnishing options, and more.
Decorating Rules of Thumb
There are a certain tenets that professional designers follow when sculpting spaces, and these concepts are especially great for people who are trying to merge large collections of diverse things or two or more very different design styles. And luckily, they’re very easy to incorporate into a plan even if you’re not working with a professional.
First, pay attention to scale. “We tend to undersize certain things and oversize other things,“ says Piteo-Varrone. “Think large on accessories and small on furniture and the space tends to look much more professional.” Don’t overwhelm a small room with oversized furniture; make sure to keep measurements in mind while you shop. On the other hand, it’s ideal to choose larger accessories, but keep them minimal. Scale also comes into play when looking at surfaces—for example, a small lamp might feel swallowed up by a large table surface.
Another tactic that designers use is to place things according to size or by grouping them. Start with large pieces and position them in the larger areas of the room, working down in size order. When you have very small objects, Piteo-Varrone suggests grouping them. “Something very small will be lost by itself on a big piece,” she says. Other times, grouping can help tie together things together. Helen Piteo Interiors once helped link together a collection of eclectic art—with colors as varied as the locales they were purchased from—by grouping pieces and creating “gallery” spaces on walls throughout the home. Here, they weren’t grouped by color or geographical region but randomly, to preserve personality and allow their individuality to stand out.
A space will also look much crisper if good storage solutions are implemented. “A lot of times when a house isn’t done professionally storage isn’t done as well,” says Gould. Look into slick, covert ways to increase storage, like incorporating it into seating or wall space or adding a funky trunk to the mix. Proper storage will keep the focus on the parts of the design you want to showcase and help keep clutter at bay.
Finally, make sure that you’re incorporating objects with a purpose in mind. “Mixing and matching is a good thing, it makes spaces look interesting, but it’s about how you integrate them,” says Maria Mendoza, a state-certified interior designer and owner of Marigold Home in Kingston. “It’s not just decorating with pieces because there’s a space there. There should be a meaning to why you’re putting one piece next to another. One piece should enhance the other piece.” Ask yourself if the lines and characteristics of the pieces in question match or complement each other as you position items in your space.
Finding Inspiration
During the process, get out and explore different styles and spaces to cull ideas that you can take back and apply to your own place. If you make it a day with your living partner, you may even discover a new style that appeals to you both and limits the amount of compromise you’ll have to make in a shared space. You can also find focal pieces and other accessories that can help define the atmosphere you want a room to take. While one of the perks of working with a professional designer is their quick access to vendors who can provide original and custom made pieces, sometimes they shop relatively local, too. Piteo-Varrone says she finds treasures at places as commercial as Home Goods, while Gould used small artisan shops in Nyack and Manhattan as points of inspiration during her time designing interiors. Now in her showroom at Sanctuary Home, she offers out-of-the-ordinary items, ranging from one-of-a-kind Asian furniture pieces to unique light fixtures and Moroccan pottery.
In High Falls, Jenny Wonderling runs Nectar, a diverse store that features a variety of fair trade products and items crafted of reclaimed wood. With inspiration from Asia and Africa, she says the store is designed to feel like what she calls “a bazaar from another place”—someplace “not commercialized, not homogenized, where unique and handcrafted things are abundant and visceral.” The store features about 1,500 square feet of eclectic accessories and gifts and another 3,000 to 4,000 square feet in a furniture annex that offers tables, hutches, dressers, standing screens, and more. Here, Wonderling believes there’s something to inspire everyone—the folks at the Emerson Resort & Spa in Mt. Tremper were impressed and sourced Nectar to provide a number of their furnishings, including carved headboards, statuary, and mirrors. But when it comes to residences, Wonderling is committed to providing exotic, interesting products that are made ethically and stimulate design potential.
“I think that your home, like your life, has to reflect your own personality and your own truth,” says Wonderling. “I see things that are sort of trendy and look at Architectural Digest and feel like a lot of homes are lacking in that unique quality that is really one person’s way of seeing the world. And I love when people are brave enough to put it out there.”
REOURCES
FW Interior Design www.fwinteriorsdesign.com
Helen Piteo Interiors www.helenpiteointeriors.com
Marigold Home www.marigold-home.com
Nectar www.nectarimports.com
Sanctuary Home www.sanctuary-home.com