The Story Behind The Design (A Day at the Beach) Friday, 02 July 2010 08:00 Written by Florencia Giner

I would like to start this article with a disclaimer, I’m not a professional interior designer, but I have decided to write an article about interior design. I do know a ‘little’ bit about design because I’m an architect by training and an interior design aficionado (in addition, a sucker for all those interior design shows that you see on TV).

Recently, my friend Elena (Shanghai Dolls website guru), mentioned to me that she has a spare empty room in her apartment that she wants to convert in a ‘chill out’ room but as you can imagine the big question is: Where do I start?

It can be extremely challenging for ‘non-designers’ to attack a design project from scratch when all that you have is an empty room and hiring a professional is not in your budget.

The first thing I’m going to tell you and I hope you listen to me, is that you don’t need to be a millionaire to have great sense of style and you can get great looking things on a budget, for cheap or almost next to nothing IF you use your imagination and you are willing to roll up your sleeves and sweat a little bit.

In design, there are thousand roads you can take to get to the place you are going, so I’m going to give you one that I find the easiest to take (at least for me) and I hope this one works for you too. One of the many ways you can approach the design of a completely white ‘empty’ room is to create a ‘story’ for the room that you can use as an inspiration for your design.

In Elena’s case, and just as an example for this article, I’m thinking that the story behind her ‘chill-out’ room is ‘A day at the beach’ (because to me, the beach is one of the best places in the world to relax) so the theme for this room will be inspired in ocean, beach and marine elements that can be borrowed to select/create colors, textures, art, etc.

One of the most important things that you need to consider while creating a room is its function and the needs that have to be satisfied in this room, in the case of a chill-out room you will probably need a place for people to sit (like a sofa), for sure you will need a TV, and it wouldn’t hurt if you have an entertainment center where you can store your ‘fake’ DVD’s (ahem, ahem), and have your IPOD dock and DVD player. These pieces of furniture are going to be your big ticket item and where you are going to spend most of your money. In my personal opinion, when money is an issue, less is always more. When is time for you to choose for furniture, the simpler the better. It is easier to create a room around a simple ‘ivory’ tone sofa, to change decoration styles and even to change your mind about the ‘theme’ for the room than trying to plan a room around an orange sofa with blue polka dots, unless you are an Interior Designer of course (well I bet you that one will be challenging even for an interior designer).

Remember, furniture (if you are on a budget) should be like your ‘little black dress’, it goes well during day and during night, you can use it in all seasons and you can easily spice it up with accessories.

A great way of visualizing your ‘story’ (in this case ‘A day in the Beach’) is to find a picture or a piece of art that to you love and you think symbolizes this idea. In my case I borrowed a picture of a beach in Turks & Caicos (on top). Having an element like this picture can be extremely helpful at the time of selecting your color palette for the room.

If you watch closely the picture you can select different tones of ‘sand’ color from lighter to darker, you can used them for example the lightest tone to be your paint color (see Julia’s article “10 Tips for Choosing the RIght Paint Color” for further info) or your sofa’s and the darker tones of sand can be used for example for the rug color or some of the accents in the room. In addition, you have several hues of blue & teal and these colors can be easily used for your accessories (including pillows, rug, curtains, etc).

Once you got your walls and furniture in (the frame of the room) is time to start the really fun part that is accessorizing you room. One of the key elements to bring life to your room are the ‘art’ elements. There are many types of art that you can use in your room, personally I tend to be inclined to photography or modern art (but this is obviously a very personal choice).

If you are on a budget you can easily scan or find great images in internet, get them printed out at your local print shop and put them in pre-made frames.

While using art, one item to take in consideration is ‘color’, art elements will have an impact in the overall feel of your room so if you go ‘crazy’ with color you may end up with a headache (LOL), using art that has a similar color ‘palette’ tends to be the safest way to go, and if you are color shy you can always choose black & white photos that are always so stylish.

If you choose the route of dealing with ‘real’ paintings and if buying them at your ‘local’ art dealer is not an option (and Ikea doesn’t have anything you like), you can paint them easily yourself.

I know you are thinking I’m completely crazy because you are not an artist, guess what, me either. I love to use a website called art.com as a source of inspiration, sometimes you will find art that is not that hard to emulate even if you are not an accomplished artist, in addition there is always the old fashioned pencil & ruler and some masking tape you can easily paint geometric forms in a canvas using acrylic paint and match your chosen color palette. As mentioned on previous articles (see Julia’s “How to Make a Small Space Feel Bigger” for further info) using a nice mirror is a great way of making a room feel bigger (plus this means that you got less ‘art’ to worry about).

Last but not least, the accessories. Same as with art you need to watch your ‘color’ and try to keep them within the color palette of your room.

However for every rule there is an exemption. I learned from a very cool young interior designer that I used to watch on TV (David Broomstad, host of HGTV ‘Color Splash’) that if you want to introduce a color punch in your room (for the purposes of our example case ‘orange’) you should introduce it in a ‘triangular’ way. This ‘triangle formula’ is intended to create a visual balance, if you put just one element in ‘orange’ in the room this will put the room off balance but if you use the ‘orange’ in 3 different elements scattered around the room in triangular way you will bring visual balance again. This punch of color can be given by different accessories like: a candle, vase, sculpture, throw, pillow, etc.

Last but not least, the following images are a few samples of accessories that you could use in this room with the “Beach” theme to give the final touch.

Last, next time you are about to start a new design project, remember: ‘what is the story behind the Design?’

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#2 Love it! — JenSomeone 2010-07-08 19:59

Hi Flor! Thanks for the article! Given my semi-empty apartment (it has all the basic furnishings and all) but definitely needs work to make it "a home of our own" :) Given that some of our walls (which seems like wood with thin cement over it) was nailed by the previous tenants and the owner things it cannot be repaired, I'm actually thinking of covering the wall with a nice fabric or good old contact paper..hehe what do you think? (I was going with the one wall being different design :)

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#1 Thanks for the idea — elena 2010-07-02 17:42

Flor, thanks for writing such a nice article and using my chill-out-room-to-be as an example. I absolutely love "A Day At The Beach" theme. I was actually thinking how to itegrate blue color into the design.I already have a beige carpet (remember the one we got in IKEA). And I got a huge screen on the wall and projector, so there is definitely multimedia theme in the design. Next steps are to find a nice sofa bed, lamps, paint colors, curtains, coffee table, bean bags and other acessories...

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