Do we love crazy cushions or pillows?
I have recently stayed in this wonderful home on a lakefront surrounded by mountains, and idyllic retreat, apart from the crazy cushions / pillows. The house was once a bed and breakfast (a boutique type of hotel), the bedrooms are all the same with all the same decoration – makes life easier when you need to replace the sheets or bed coverings I suppose! These were in mocha brown tones by the way, just to set the mood of the room! Then to my surprise on top of a tan micro suede window seat cover were about 12 cushions. The ranged in color from white with a black floral motif, to plain lime green. I will talk about the others in between later. (Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the real thing but I have some other examples to view).
I was asked to comment on the decor and I said that the cushions (crazy cushions) are refreshing. That was being kind! The room was simple there was no sense of anyone that lived there, the bed had no bed head, there was simple dark stained pine furniture – side tables and a set of drawers the built in timber was pale Rimu. There was nothing in the book shelves on lonely picture of snow and a tree with a fence on the wall. So I can understand why the designer – yes a designer, I have been told that a designer arranged the interior decor of this home, decided to add lime green….perhaps they were depressed from all the brown!
The basic faults that screamed out at me was that the cushions/pillows, whilst each was a gorgeous fabric on their own combined they looked like they were in the boxing ring, fighting for the title of best dressed!
Yes, they were all competing against each other to be on top, unfortunately, not one of them was ever going to win! I think the interior designer would have been better off selecting 2 perhaps 3 fabrics and combining them and perhaps making each room (only 9 bedrooms!) slightly different and unique. Of course the lime green had to go. Had it been burnt orange it could have stayed perhaps.
Anyway, the moral of the story is for a design or decoration to flow, you need to consider how many different patterns you will place in a room. This designer had selected quality fabrics of exquisite design but unfortunately had tried to use them all at once and they had no connection to each other. Using a combination of 2 or 3 colorways would have made the room feel more comfortable and relaxing as after all it was a bedroom. Starting with the bed cover which was the largest area of fabric, they then could have taken some colors of textures from that and added a complementary color to brighten the scheme.
A fantastic home apart from the crazy cushions / pillows!
If you want to make great design choices and love getting tips and ideas about interior design, register for willowcollege’s interior design course today, it’s so much fun!
