Furniture is one of the most important design elements in a room. According to interior designer Augusta Tapia, rather than having all the décor in a room match, consider blending contrasting furniture finishes and different designs for a more eclectic look.
Watch this video to find out more.
Further Information
- Tips for Arranging Accessories on a Table (video)
- How to Paint and Decorate a Built-in Bookcase (video)
- How to Refinish Furniture (video/article)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Danny Lipford: Your furniture selections make a big impact on design. So, I’m stopping by the showroom of another designer, Augusta Tapia, to talk about how she approaches that with homeowners. And our next tip: select a signature piece.
Well, I’ll tell you I just love your showroom. I had no idea there was so much stuff to choose from for the house.
Augusta Tapia: Oh, absolutely. We have to keep a good selection because, you know, these wives, they’re picky. And they want lots of lamps to choose from, they want beautiful pillows and mirrors, and lots of accessories. So, we try to keep a lot of those things that are special for them.
Danny Lipford: I just think about the challenges you must have when you go out to someone’s home, and, of course, everybody has different taste. And then you’re bound to run into someone that just has something that they can’t get rid of. Maybe it’s a family piece, sentimental piece, or something that they recently bought. How do you design around that?
Augusta Tapia: You have to take special pieces like that into consideration when you design a room. Sometimes, it’s not necessarily finding the place in the room that it’s currently located. It’s finding the correct room in the house for it to go in, where it has the best use and goes with the decor in that particular room. So, working around a signature piece is always a really challenging thing, but a good thing. And you have to remember that the furniture finishes in a room don’t all have to match. You can use dark wood pieces of furniture with lighter wood pieces. Actually, blending things is much more interesting than you trying to think that you have to match everything.
Danny Lipford: Well, that would be the first thing that I would think of. You know, if you’re using this in a room, you’ve got to have something over there – the end table or whatever – that matches it, and you’re saying just the opposite.
Augusta Tapia: An eclectic look is really good. That makes people happy to be able to do something that’s a little bit different than what their friends have. And when you blend things together, you get that special look, which is really good.
Danny Lipford: Maybe you don’t get tired of it as much.
Augusta Tapia: You don’t.
Danny Lipford: You hear people say, “I have the same old thing. It’s kind of boring.” But we throw in a little bit of an eclectic kind of feel to it.
Augusta Tapia: Right.
Danny Lipford: I guess you’ll like it a lot longer.
Augusta Tapia: And things like that give you the opportunity to be able to rearrange your house periodically, which makes it be a lot more interesting and you don’t get tired of things as easily.
