Jaxen Jennings
This post started out being about home accessories, but I had a little snafu this past week. I spent all day contorting my body into bizarre pretzel shapes because I was photographing four rooms.
I’ve been working on three new jobs since the end of summer and this is a very good one to make my point about the secret to creating a beautiful interior. This client, I’ll call her Em, actually reads my blog!
(he says) He asked her to choose a painting as the inspiration for a color scheme. As it happens, Em has a doctorate in art history and she chose this lesser known masterpiece by Edouard Manet
The architect chose an awesome fabric for the dining chairs from J Robert Scott. The table and chairs are traditional, so this fabric will make an interesting counterpoint.
Em found this incredible Belle Epoque chandelier for the dining room. I love how it’s fanciness plays against the geometry of the chair fabric. Em’s is actually square, with crystal and antique brass or bronze. The architect sold Em on some black velvet drapes.
In addition the drapes are velvet, so these pinch pleats looked like a row of hungry Sharpeis. Problem number two is like the doggie, the drapes are brown, not black.
We decided to do a sort of Scarlet O’Hara and reupholster two chairs with the velvet drapes.
Em wants a fresh look and she chose my favorite shade of white paint.
We’ll make them full enough to close so we won’t need sheers. We had already established a color scheme of black and white, with touches of gold and neutrals.
discuss, needs, wish lists, style, color and general budget. I always begin with a floor plan and once that’s approved, start to select furnishings.
What I do is go shopping online and recently, Laurel’s Rolodex has been incredibly helpful!
The look hearkens back to a time right around when the home was built with its Art Deco elements. One of my favorites is this interpretation by Thomas O’Brien for Circa Lighting. If you look closely, you’ll see that there are repetitions of design elements that make for a kind of dialog.
As I said, I only found out about the painting (and added another one by Manet for the board) a few days ago! An important note is that while the painting has all of the colors, it doesn’t mean that they have to be used in the same concentration.
A detail shot of Portrait of Emile Zola by Edouard Manet
A detail shot of a gorgeous Tobi Fairley room showing a white drapery trimmed.
Hey, just be glad, I didn’t put in the one called “The Finger.” haha!
