Design Confidently, Live Comfortably
| January/February 2005 Find Your Eclectic Style Get started The following process will give you clues on how to cultivate your eclectic style: DECIDE what atmosphere you want to create. Start with a room, or with part of a room, and decide how you want it to feel. Calming or lively? Sophisticated or funky? ASSESS your space. Look at what you have and what you need. Could you use another chair? What function does the room need to fill? FIND your inspiration. You can be inspired by any number of things: an architectural element already in the room, a piece of furniture you’ve collected, a color you like, a particular wallpaper pattern, a piece of artwork. Study your inspirational element. What qualities does it have? What style does it represent? Composing rooms Artful composition is a difficult concept to define. I like to compose rooms as a painter creates a painting. This requires thinking about the foreground and background, light and shadow, and a balance of furnishings in the room: some tall, some wide, some grouped. Here are a few pointers to help you make an interesting eclectic composition.
What makes it work? Careful and thoughtful use of color, pattern, and texture are the keys to your success. COLOR can make a room come alive and tie things together. Pick a few colors in a beautiful kilim, repeat them in a variety of ways—in upholstery, pottery, art, paint—and the room will have a polished look. Avoid pristine white walls. They make you work a lot harder to find the right balance of shapes, textures, and colors. PATTERN can be a great starting point for designing an eclectic room. Look for an appealing pattern in textiles, rugs, wallpaper, or even artwork. If you like the look of mixed patterns, select one dominant pattern for your inspiration and draw other colors and shapes for the room from that. Also be mindful of varying the scale of the patterns in the room. TEXTURE can be introduced through furniture, walls, floors, or accessories. Wall coverings—either wallpaper or woven fabrics—and rugs add warmth to a room. Consider the textural quality of a piece of furniture as well as its style and color. Vary textures so one material doesn’t dominate. Mix shiny and matte surfaces, and add something soft, like pillows or a throw.ith unconventional colors and rich textures. – Designer Lori Erenberg lives and works in Los Angeles. One of her specialties is mixing 20th-century furnishings with unconventional colors and rich textures. |
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PHOTOS: JENNIFER CHEUNG |
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