Designer Q&A: 6 Ways to Jazz Up Your Home
Designer Andrew Flesher, the master of mixing it up, gives us a lesson in decorating with impact.
(Continued from Page 1) By Kathy McCleary
Limit your color palette
While it may sound contradictory, using fewer colors is actually a bolder move than using a wide range of color. "Sometimes the most effective rooms are just two colors," Flesher says. "Say you love blue and white. Do the whole room in blue and white and don't vary from it. Once you make that decision, stick with it."
Simplify materials
Use the same fabric, whether it's floral or solid, on every piece of upholstered furniture in the room. "The furniture almost recedes, and then you notice the shape of the furniture itself," says Flesher. If you've got a patterned fabric, make a statement by using it in huge quantities. Once Flesher decorated a room entirely in Fortuny fabric, a hand-blocked yellow damask with a "mottled, very beautiful texture." The draperies and upholstery were all in the same fabric, and he even blew up the pattern for a rug in the adjoining room.
Learn to edit
Intentional minimalism makes an impact, Flesher says. What doesn't: A room crammed with so much stuff you don't know where to look first, or a room that's spare because you're not finished with it and you don't know what to do. "Intention is when you have the right objects in the right places." When you buy items and bring them home over time, you lose the big picture, says Flesher. "It's easy to add one more thing and then add one more and before you know it, you've got too much. The eye has a way of ignoring things you've seen for a long time." Flesher suggests removing everything from all the surfaces in a room and then putting them back one at a time, in different spots. "Inevitably, you'll have stuff left over when you're done."
Mix it up
Just because you live in a classic 1930s Cape Cod-style house doesn't mean you need to furnish your home with traditional pieces. While Flesher says it's important to be true to your home's architectural style when doing anything to the shell—moldings, bathroom fixtures, kitchen—"you don't have to match your furniture to the period of the house. Many times, that's what makes it interesting, the surprise of seeing contemporary furniture in a Tudor house."
Kathy McCleary is a frequent contributor to HGTV.com. Read more of her articles here..
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