Design tips from Tamara Scott-Anderson, ASID

Photography courtesy of Incanto
Categories: Color Palettes, Coordinating a Room, Accessorizing

• White is a timeless option for Contemporary furnishings and is seeing resurgence in popularity in everything from leather and fabrics to accessories. Here, white is the basic palette for a minimalist color scheme of black and gold.
• The use of floor-to-ceiling, soft, white sheer drapery panels provides several design solutions. Foremost, it softens and diffuses the light, while repeating the vertical lines of the architectural structure. In addition, it provides acoustical benefits for absorbing echoes and it softens the textures in a large, mostly hard-surface room.
• The unique, tortoiseshell floor lamp is part of a growing trend to use light as art. In addition, the gold leaf floor lamp is a single-jeweled accent providing reading and ambient lighting.
• Cocktail ottomans are as popular as ever. Here, a large, oversized piece is the appropriate scale to balance the large sectional in this spacious room. When less is more, sometimes bigger is better.
• New trends in accessories for a contemporary, minimalist home is to leave large areas of wall space untouched by stacking and layering art work and objects on shelves.
• Along with large floor pillows, the large, rectangle area rug was placed at an angle to furnishings, allowing for more comfortable, settable floor space.
• Use of low-VOC paints, 100% cotton sheer fabric and the 100% wool carpet gives this room a good rating for moving the home towards a “green”, healthy and earth-friendly environment.