‘SHE WASN’T AFRAID OF COLOUR’
A designer shares how she amped up a young professional’s suite with an art-driven palette
Sometimes her job as a lawyer could be serious, so she wanted to come home to a space that was fun and upbeat.
— amanda Shields, designer
In a compact one-bedroom-plus-den condo, designer Amanda Shields used a combination of colour and art to breathe life into her young professional client’s home. The suite had a few promising assets: clean white walls, high ceilings and plenty of light. But it was otherwise blank, giving the designer tabula rasa to add interest through the addition of carefully curated furnishings, colour and art.
“She loves to entertain friends and wanted it to reflect her personality,” the designer explains. “Also, sometimes her job as a lawyer could be serious, so she wanted to come home to a space that was fun and upbeat. And she wasn’t afraid of colour.”
The transformation began in the living room. A gallery wall combining favourite prints, chosen by the owner with additions from Amanda and her team, were reframed to adhere to a unified colour scheme of red, gold, blush, black and white. These colours then informed the furnishings: a mustard-toned sofa, cosy cream bouclé armchair and a sleek marble-topped coffee table with gold banding and a black base. Other colours, notably the tomato red of the bull in one print, repeat in smaller accessories like the cushions.
Typical of many condos, the dining room adjoins the living room, so some of the hues are used in both spaces. Starting, again, with the palette of the artwork — in this case, a pair of prints from the trade-only site Renwil — Shield added a black wooden table and six blush-toned velvet chairs under a chandelier whose bulbs reminded her of a classic mid-century modern sunburst clock. “The owner loves mid-century-modern style, and it suited this condo well, because often it’s more streamlined than modern — which is great in smaller spaces — and many of the pieces from that time were made in great colours as well.”
The condo’s ultra-compact den doubles as a guest room, so functionality and a more subdued mood were in order. The pull-out sofa is upholstered in army green, more interesting than basic grey but still relatively lowkey. Other furnishings in the room are lighter in both visual and literal weight to make them easier to move out of the way when the bed gets pulled out. The artwork is similarly laid back: a lighter-than-air pencil drawing of birds above the sofa, and an art print in grey and soft yellow, both of which are repeated in the sofa pillows.
The client’s bedroom, by contrast, is full of high spirits. It’s the only room where the white walls were traded in for an accent wall of cobalt blue, creating a rich backdrop for a simple, striking figure painted in black brush strokes on white. “The accent wall makes the art stand out, almost as if it’s a part of the painting,” Shields says.
To provide contrast to the cobalt wall, a graphic ikat-patterned pillow and throw with terracotta accents add punch. Unfussy furnishings — cosy upholstered bed, Mcm-influenced wall sconce and side table — add elegance without stuffiness.
Once these elements were in place, “we realized the room needed something more,” says Shields. The answer came in the form of subtle graphic wallpaper, in an unexpected spot: the ceiling. Framing it within a recessed ceiling coffer helps make it feel like more of a “moment,” while an additional panel covers the closet door.
When it comes to choosing art, says Shield, if you love a piece it will probably work in your home. But even so, there are certain rules of thumb that designers use to help make the art harmonize well in most interiors.
A classic trick is to start with the art and use it to inspire the colours of your room. “It doesn’t have to be a big piece like a sofa; you can achieve the same effect with pillows or a rug,” says Shields.
When shopping for framed art for your home, try to keep proportion in mind. A small painting can be lost all by itself on a large wall, and similarly, a large work can be overwhelming in a smaller room. “My rule of thumb is that it should be about half to two-thirds the size of your sofa,” Shields says. She adds that many people tend to hang art too high; the midpoint should be at or just above eye level, or about five feet from the floor.
Gallery walls are a great way to group a collection of smaller works together and create the visual weight of one larger piece. One of Shields’s favourite ways to display family photos is to have them all reprinted in black and white, then frame them in simple black frames with white mats, for an instant photo-gallery look.
Whether hanging photos or other framed art, the ideal is to group them in such a way that they are balanced but not necessarily symmetrical. (Try arranging them on the floor until you find a composition you like.) Similar frames — either identical or colour co-ordinated as in this living room — help to unify the composition. “I also like about two inches between each of the frames,” says Shields.