Designer Decorating With Red

Known to stimulate appetite and conversation, red is most often used in dining rooms. But red can work well in just about any room design. From classic to cutting-edge, here's how four top designers re-imagine the paint color.

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Hide CaptionShow CaptionIt's amazing what you can do in just 75 square feet — especially if you are willing to go really, really bold and really, really red, as designers Alexandra Loew and Lauren Soloff from The Desk of Lola did in this Greenwich Village apartment.

- Red Room Design

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HGTV HOME by Sherwin-Williams

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By Susan Kleinman

The media room's walls and windows are covered in pleated drapes made of cream-on-cherry cotton damask, camouflaging an ugly airshaft view and offering the darkness and acoustic buffering that a media room requires.

"Since the room is so small, it really benefited from a bold choice," designers Alexandra Loew and Lauren Soloff say. "Something more neutral would have left it feeling rather bland and unfinished. We saw this room as a great opportunity to commit to one strong color and really use it from top to bottom."

Although damasks are usually used in more traditional settings, the fabric looks fresh and fashionable here. "The strong vibrancy of the red and crispness of the cream made it look more like a super graphic than a traditional damask," say the designers. "Also, pairing it with a 1970s-style sofa takes that traditional, frumpy edge off."

A red Ultrasuede loveseat by Ligne Rosset completes the look with a solid-red exclamation point.

Photo by Catherine Tighe