On-Trend Geometrics and Punchy Color Define This Family's Desert Oasis Home

Designer Lauren Lerner took a Scottsdale, Arizona home from cramped to bright with contemporary updates that promise to stand the test of time.

November 16, 2021

By: Lauren Oster

Related To:

How to Make Contemporary Design Feel Timeless

Lauren Lerner — founder and lead designer of Scottsdale, Arizona-based firm Living With Lolo — creates spaces in the sweet spot between "choices that’ll still make sense in a decade" and "the best and brightest of what’s going on in the design world right now." That was her goal in reimagining this five-bedroom, five-bath home for her clients and their two nine-year-old daughters; they’d already lived in their home for several years and knew it was high time to shake things up. “Their main priority was making the kitchen more functional,” Lauren explains. “It is actually quite small and had no pantry and little cabinet space.” Starting from scratch, she reinvigorated their once stale rooms with crowd-pleasing and dynamic patterns, vibrant colors and rich finishes that resonate with current trends and will brighten the family headquarters for years to come. Take a closer look at how Lauren coaxed these spaces to life, and deploy her moves to help your own rooms live happily ever after.

A Custom Rug Can Make a Once-Awkward Entryway Spectacular

To put it bluntly, “the entryway needed a refresh,” Lauren says. That meant reconsidering both architectural details and key accents. “We completely updated the stairs in this home. The initial stair railing was a very ornate and dated wrought iron that needed to be brought into modern times. The entry itself isn't large, so we had to prioritize pieces that were not only beautiful but also functional. And since we were working with a small footprint, we had to have a rug custom-made. We found this gorgeous black and ivory wool rug at Jaipur Living [an ethical, sustainable rug and home accessories company]. They had it custom-made for us overseas, which during COVID was not a quick process. It really tied up the space together.”

Consider What Visitors Will See When They Enter Your Home — and Arrange Detailed Pieces Accordingly

“Since you see this room and the backs of the chairs when you first walk into the home, we knew we wanted the backs of the chairs to be special and a main feature of the space,” Lauren says. With a striking combination of rattan caning, neutral upholstered panels and angular ebonized wood, these Japanese-tatami-inspired barrel chairs fit the bill perfectly.

Invest in Upholstery Fabric That’s Tough Enough for Your Family

The white sofas are the first pieces Lauren and her team selected for the living room. “We used a Crypton fabric for this sofa that allows families who have kids to choose colors and fabrics that they might not have otherwise chosen because it is durable and very easy to clean,” she explains. “The pillows are from Square Feathers. When styling the tables we love to mix items of various textures and heights to keep your eyes moving around.”

Veined Quartz and White Oak Anchor This Bright, Contemporary Kitchen

Lauren updated the once-awkward kitchen by pairing gently-washed, rift-cut white oak upper cabinets with a gleaming quartz island, countertops and backsplash. This open-plan arrangement of generous prep areas and sitting spaces is now a fully functional family gathering spot.

Customize a Breakfast Nook by Hanging Cushions From Wall-Mounted Hardware

Who knew that the key to creating a one-of-a-kind upholstered banquette in this kitchen was a variation on humble curtain rods? These bespoke back cushions are perfect for wiggly sitters, since they won’t topple over or shift out of place. “Our local workroom helped us fabricate the rod and the cushions for this space,” Lauren says.

Streamline Kitchen Countertops by Choosing Accessories With Shared Features

The simple, handsome wooden cutting boards Lauren chose to display beside the sink echo both the cabinets above them and the lids on the canisters beside them. Those canisters and the similarly-cylindrical ceramic vessel beside the window, in turn, corral staples like pasta and baking supplies without compromising the kitchen’s minimalistic, organic look.

Add Warmth and Visual Texture to Kitchen Floors With Vintage-Inspired Runners

The soft pink and blush hues in this intricate rug from Jaipur Living counterbalance the sleek look of the dark lower cabinets between the kitchen island and sink. Use a patterned piece like this one to create connection between functional, high-traffic areas like this corridor and more ornamental textiles in bedrooms and gathering spaces.

Playful Teal Curtains Make a Stylish Dining Room Feel Approachable

Lauren aimed for unfussy chic in this space: “The drapery fabric gives a fun vibe while being functional,” she explains. “The pop of color is great without being overwhelming.” The dining chairs are also MVPs: “They are a unique design with a leather seat, so [they’re] perfect for family dinners with kiddos because you don’t have to worry about them staining.”

Make the Most of Hidden Storage and Decorative Jars in Kids’ Play Spaces

This craft room is both easy on adult eyes and perfect for Lauren’s clients’ young daughters, thanks to a few key design decisions. “It’s all about hidden organization here,” Lauren explains. “Everything has a space.” Labeled canisters on the upper shelves of the rattan-accented hutch between the windows put supplies within reach without creating a mess. Kid-friendly polyester velvet lounge chairs and hexagonal ottomans with luxe gold-tone bases offer scaled-down takes on the upholstered pieces she chose for other rooms.

Look for Shallow Vanities to Outfit Small or Oddly-Shaped Powder Rooms

Given its quirky and somewhat ungenerous dimensions, this room was a bit of a brain teaser for Lauren and her team. “In the powder room we really wanted to make it fun and glamorous,” she explains. “This space was an odd shape and pretty small, so we needed to have a vanity custom sized to fit.” (Standard vanities are about 21 inches deep.) “The pendants are so fun with their modern shape, and we liked how [they] flanked the mirror.”

Color Block a Powder Room by Pairing Pale Wallpaper With Half a Wall of Tile

Lauren carried crisp, black geometric tile across this floor and halfway up to the ceiling, where it contrasts handsomely with the gold-shot wallpaper she chose for the upper portion of the room. This traditional treatment was originally popular because it’s durable and easy to clean; its contemporary iteration, in turn, is both of those things and elegant to boot.

Bring Colorful Abstract Artwork Into Kids’ Rooms

Lauren created a graphic moment in one of the girls’ bedrooms by using painterly paper from Drop It Modern on a feature wall, then embellishing that wall with sized-to-order artwork: “We love that you can customize the sizing to fit the spaces,” she says. Her source works with designers rather than direct consumers, but bespoke pieces are available to the public, too. “Find similar sized-to-order pieces at Minted.com,” she advises.

Pair a Classic Campaign Desk With a Curvaceous Velvet Chair

This sweet, scholarly vignette is both an ideal spot to knock out homework and a de facto bedside table, by virtue of touches like the gleaming jewelry box and graphic picture frame. Warm metallic tones that carry from the table lamp and mirror’s frame to the globe hardware and chair legs make the arrangement feel both cohesive and luxe.

Make the Most of Natural Light With Multiple Bedroom Mirrors

Why settle for just one mirror above a bedroom desk when you can bounce all that gorgeous sunlight around even more with a second piece above the dresser on another wall? This shapely addition makes the space feel even larger.

Blush Tones Carry Through Fabric, Art and Tile in This Feminine Contemporary Bath

Pale, patterned pink and white hexagonal tiles add a bit of edge to the floor in this artistic bathroom; a similar hue emerges in the kaleidoscopic fabric Lauren chose for the shower curtain and the abstract watercolor on the wall opposite the sink. Warm wood cabinets anchor the buttery hardware and accessories she installed throughout the space.

Hanging Chair and Pom-Pom Trim Infuse a Bedroom With Fun

Outfitting a space that will delight a child now and grow with her in years to come is all about pulling in whimsical details that you might find in adult spaces. To that end, Lauren added delightful-for-all-ages hanging chairs as reading nooks in both girls’ rooms, and trimmed their crisp white Roman shades with inexpensive, playful pom-pom passementerie. "This wallpaper is from Peter Dunham," she says. "We knew we needed to keep the drapery simple here because there was so much color elsewhere. I came across the pom pom fringe and thought it would be a cute detail."

Skip High-Tech Bedroom Gadgets and Go Retro With an Analog Nightstand Clock

Lauren added the old-school touch of an analog clock with handwritten numbers between architectural greenery and a pale pink table lamp on this gently angular nightstand. Its face echoes both the greens’ cylindrical ceramic vase and the scalloped upper border of the Art Deco-inspired, channel-tufted gray velvet headboard. Nifty, no?

Deploy Two Small Pendants in a Double-Vanity Bathroom

In this long, narrow space, a single, centered pendant would have left the sink to the left in relative darkness; sconces, in turn, would crowd already-limited wall space between the mirrors and the window. Diminutive, fanciful pendants installed above each station, on the other hand, offer plenty of light and maintain breathing room on the rear wall.

Accent Bathroom Counters With Foraged Greenery

Seasonal clippings like these are a designer’s best friends: in lieu of splurging on a florist’s work every week, just make an occasional trip to the garden or take a foraging walk around the neighborhood. “Every room should have a pop of greenery to add life to the space,” Lauren says.

Brighten a Long Hallway With Colorful Art

Lauren chose a large, custom-sized canvas to ornament the passage between this bathroom's sinks and shower. The artwork’s frame echoes the intricate pattern on the room’s black and white cement tiles, and its pretty pastel wash complements the window treatment it faces.

Plate Glass Barriers Maximize Light in Small Bathrooms

Glass is perennially popular in spaces like this one for good reason: “This bathroom is really small and the glass shower helps the room to feel larger,” Lauren says. Rich brass hardware, a boldly patterned floor and the abstract fabric she chose for the room’s Roman shade are all the embellishment it needs.

Compose a Restful Bedroom by Choosing Subtle Variations on a Single Material

In the principal suite, “the wallpaper and the drapery happen to be from the same brand but not the same collection,” Lauren explains. “We focused on finding something along with the ceiling paint color to play nicely with each other.” To assemble a dreamy bed with graphic accents like this one, look for white linens from Annie Selkie and combine with Kelly Wearstler’s iconic Graffito fabric. That pattern carries into the bathroom, where it reappears as window treatments: “When I pick a color or pattern I like to make sure that we repeat it or apply something similar somewhere else so that it doesn't feel out of place,” Lauren says. “Our goal was to have a cohesive space while having each room have its own personality.”

Make a Bold Statement With Ceiling Paint in Your Principal Bath

Bathrooms are ideal spaces to experiment with ultra-confident design moves (it’s no accident that look-at-me wallpaper is all the rage in trend-conscious powder rooms), and Lauren encourages homeowners to follow her lead with a dramatic treatment. "Painting this ceiling black is such a special unexpected pop," she says. “We say go for it and you can always paint over it if you don’t like it! Pick an element in the room that you want to highlight and find a color that works well with it to use on the ceiling.”

An Occasional Table Offers Storage Beside a Streamlined Soaking Tub

Is the architectural vessel you’ve chosen for bubble baths short on perches for accessories? Call in a quirky piece like this one. “This is such a cute little table from TOV that functions as a place to set a glass of wine or tea during a soak,” Lauren notes. Don’t let its size or whimsical silhouette fool you: crafted of heavy-duty iron, it’s stable and durable.

Black Marble Tile Defines a Contemporary, Glass-Walled Shower

The barely-there barrier Lauren chose for the principal bath suite could make its double shower feel lost in space — which is where the black veined stone she chose for its walls comes in handy. The visual room-within-a-room it creates adds intimacy to the corner without making the rest of the suite appear smaller.

Deploy a Detailed Vanity and Metallic Accents as Wow Factors in the Bathroom

The showstopping vanity in the principal bath is stained alder. “We wanted to go a bit darker on the wood in this space and we liked how it added warmth to the otherwise mostly black and white room,” Lauren says. “The brushed brass details on the sconces and mirrors add a touch of glam.”

Make Design Decisions You Can Repeat Throughout Your Home

The principal bedroom and bathroom in this home are Lauren’s favorite spaces in the project. “I love how they flow so nicely together and are such unique and unexpected spaces.” With harmonious tones, luxurious materials and a sense of fun that permeates the home that surrounds them, they’ll be delighting their occupants for a long, long time.

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Photo By: Life Created - Stephanie Studer