Years ago I volunteered to help ready several fabulous houses for a home-tour fundraiser, an event where looky-loos buy tickets to snoop around someone else’s private space and break that commandment about coveting.
No truly lived-in home is design-tour perfect (which is a relief), so we hired professional designers to lightly redecorate and transform these houses into showplaces. My job was design liaison, and I was in charge of stroking the homeowner’s large but fragile ego while telling her that the designer thought her accessories looked like they came from the Salvation Army’s Dumpster.
At one home, the designer and I walked into the master sitting area and found a red velvet sofa shaped like a gigantic stiletto.
“Oh, no,” I gasped.
“Don’t panic,” he said. “I can make anything work.”
He found a black and white zebra-hide rug, painted the walls pencil gray, added a crystal chandelier and some framed red and black prints of dancing girls, and, amazingly, the sofa worked. “Context is everything,” he said.
His words recently became my mantra when my 12-year- old daughter wanted gaudy, bright purple and white wallpaper in her bedroom. Marissa first spotted the wallpaper in a catalog. The catalog called the color peony; I called it streetwalker.
At first, I did the mature thing. I hid the catalog. She found the wallpaper online. Then I tried stalling: “I’m not doing a thing to your room until you get rid of half your stuff.” I figured that would buy time since she’d need a team of archeologists for that task.
The next weekend was eerily quiet. Come Sunday, I asked my husband, “Have you seen Marissa?”
“Who?”
We dashed to her room and found a mountain of trash bags outside her door. I noticed Marissa burrowing like a mole under her desk, strewing papers in her wake. I looked around; the closet, under the sink, her dresser top were clutter-free and clean.
“Wow! You really want that wallpaper,” I said.
“Why don’t you?”
“It’s just so purple.” I felt myself squint.
“I’ll love it forever, Mom.”
I shook my head, then heard that voice: “I can make anything work.”
“All right,” I said.
The hug I got was worth any future visual discomfort.
With wallpaper swatch in hand, we hit every fabric store within 50 miles looking for something palatable to go with it. Ten stores later, we realized: Surprise! Streetwalker peony isn’t a popular color. Furthermore, few fabrics can live alongside such loud wallpaper.
But I can make anything work.
“Wait!” a seasoned saleswoman said, then rustled off to the back room. She returned with a book of mattelaisse fabric samples, those solid-color cottons stitched like quilts. She flipped open to one sample, and there it was: streetwalker peony!
“Score!” Marissa shouted.
“Whew!” We agreed to pair this with white mattelaisse for her bedding. The classic quilted fabric offset the tartiness of the wallpaper the way a strand of pearls can make a too-tight top look less sleazy.
We papered one wall and painted the others pale lilac. We covered the bed in white mattelaisse with matching shams edged in streetwalker peony, which we also used for two valances. We made the bed skirt of lavender silk, and skirted a round table with black polka-dot cotton. Then Marissa added the finishing touch that was all her: a cylinder-shaped, crushed-velvet stool, in streetwalker peony.
Guess what? It all works.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of the forthcoming book “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo Press, April). Contact her through .
Professional touch
Custom bedding and drapery cost more than ready-made products and involve a gazillion brain-frying choices. But when done well, the results are worth it. You don’t need a professional designer to achieve a professional look. Here’s how to give any bedroom a custom makeover.
Start with something certain. For us it was the peony wallpaper. But your lead might be a painting; a theme, such as birds or baseball; a fabric; or the color of a flower outside the window. Pick two or three colors that work well together.
Gather swatches. Build a file of possible wall treatments, fabrics, trims and photos of furnishings and ideas for dressing windows and beds.
Lay samples out in the room. Building around your lead, create a patchwork of possibilities, then edit. Combine patterns in your color scheme using this rule: Mix a large-scale pattern (big print), with a geometric (stripe, plaid or dot), with a solid, and maybe a small print. Add interest by picking fabrics with varied textures. I steered Marissa toward textured solids (mattelaisses); a shiny, small-patterned lavender silk; and black cotton polka dot, for grounding.
Decide what goes where. This is where I leave the room screaming. You have to make umpteen detail decisions or your stuff will look ready-made — exactly what you’re trying to avoid. Bed skirt gathered, flat or pleated? Border or not? Square or oblong shams? Edge detail: ruffle, flange, knife-edge, welt? And your window treatments? Aaargh! After you’ve made up your mind, have a seamstress measure and tell you how much of each fabric you need — before you buy it. While she’s sewing, paint and paper the walls.
Ask for all scraps. I use them for throw pillows, which come next, and for future projects and repairs.
Enjoy the best part. A customized room is all about you.
