For most men, looking at or even thinking about home furnishings ranks somewhere between a visit to the dentist and getting a letter from the IRS. We’d rather do anything else but be dragged to a furniture store and asked such questions as “What do you think of this one, honey?” As a designer working with couples, I have seen that deer in the headlights look on men’s faces too many times.

Guys may think they don’t know much about interior design but we sell ourselves short. With just a few simple lessons, any man can become not only good but downright talented when it comes to decorating.

Men have a real knack for space and proportion and understand spatial relations and how balance makes for a good room layout. Many of the great architects down the centuries have been men. Men excel at cooking and at designing automobiles. How is designing your living room any different?

Lesson One – Color is not out to get you. Believe it or not, there is something beyond Navajo white and blue. While your wife may bring home swatches of pinks and lavenders, you can one up her big time by impressing her with your knowledge of such manly colors as Sedona Rock or Wilderness Cabin. I’ve found most men are open to color more so than their mates. In the animal kingdom, males flash bright colors and strut their stuff to get attention. Somehow, human males have become drab and this just goes against nature. Whenever I show clients color options, it’s always the man who goes for the saturated reds and greens. But then he somehow retreats to his comfort zone and ends up with beige.  Don’t be afraid to take the plunge. You can do it.

Lesson Two – Get out of that Dad Chair. Face it, our fathers and probably their fathers had the one chair in the house that was just theirs. Usually a recliner or at least something in brown leather, it became a man’s one and only refuge in a room he probably had no input in designing. Men aren’t like dogs who need just a bed and a bone to be happy. We need to escape the Dad Chair and join the rest of the family. Leather is great; it’s comfortable and forms to your body like an old pair of jeans. But look at lighter colors, neutral and vanilla shades that are more modern, hipper and look like part of the room plan, not an afterthought. Next time you are in a furniture store, tell your wife you want to look at tufted chairs and textural fabrics. By the time she comes to, you’ll be far away from the recliner section.

Lesson Three – It’s not like matching your shoes to your belt. Don’t let our good looks fool you, we have an imagination. If you can figure out how to sneak in that weekend in Vegas, you can select furniture without breaking into a sweat. One thing that really makes me crazy is when people say they want a bedroom “set”. We are not in the days of Ozzie and Harriet anymore. You don’t need to match the bed with the night stands and the dresser. Open up your parameters and see that mix and match makes a room more user friendly and not so staid. Recently I told a young father to go home and throw around words like “coordinate” and “complimentary” in describing his vision of the bedroom. I think I may have personally saved their marriage!

Lesson Four –  Up your game. I don’t know what it is about men holding on to everything.  Don’t let your house become full of unnecessary items. We all like our “stuff”, but there is a limit. Go back to the basics. Keep accessories to a minimum. The idea of the man cave probably started when someone’s girlfriend got sick and tired of looking at the trophies, framed team jerseys and collection of beer glasses that were filling up her dream house. The poor guy was banished to the den, the basement or even worse, a corner of the garage. Keep the peace in your home and be a part of the family room by learning that you can live with a lot less than you think. Not to say that your needs should be disregarded. But that poster of the cat clinging to the branch that says “Hang in there, Baby” was probably better left at your college dorm room. You’re a grown man now. The time has come for adult art. Finally, think about how easy it will be to straighten up when you want to make a good impression on that first date.

 Lesson Five – Sofa and the Single Man. We need to stand proud and shout “I’m not going to take it any longer”. Men have needs, too, and one of these is comfort. Work with your designer to find sofas and chairs that fit you. Today one size does not fit all. You can buy furniture that’s scaled to your frame. Sofas come in different depths. Cushions can be anything from pure down to solid core foam. We don’t have to sit on tiny dining room chairs and feel that we are attending a tea party. It’s up to you, gentleman, to make your voice heard. The biggest lesson you need to learn here is not to be a passive participant in your own home and its design. Have a say in what’s comfortable for you. Sit in many options; don’t be talked into something just because it’s pretty or on sale. In this business, you get what you pay for and it’s not the time to be frugal. A recent study showed that men spend more time using their home furnishings than women do. Flex your designer muscle. Your house can look good and be a restful respite from the world.

I’ll keep this short, as most of us suffer from ADHD and have the attention span of a tsetse fly. If you think you have successfully completed this course, then it’s time to consider Interior Design for Men Graduate School. Classes start soon. If decorating your home still scares you, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Hire an interior designer to lead you in the right direction. It’s bad enough someone has to pick out your clothes. Don’t let your wife or mother make the decisions you will have to live with for years.

Now, let’s talk the biggest screen TV we can find….

The old adage “rules are meant to be broken” is truest when it comes to interior design. The best design is the one that flaunts the rules. We cannot be afraid of making a mistake or feel we have to follow conventional wisdom. Every room has its own personality and is as different as the person who lives there. Those who color outside the lines show the most imagination and creativity. Those who walk the straight and narrow leave nothing behind to be remembered.

Here are 5 rules you’ve probably been told that you need to forget:

1. Don’t mix and match patterns. – It’s easy to live with solids or throw in a stripe or a floral, but you need to go further. If you feel uneasy with mixing more – then stick to a palette like just white and black or go to the opposite sides of the spectrum, like orange stripes with purple plaids. Mixing patterns adds visual interest and texture to a space. So go on and put that plaid with the leopard print. Cover dining room chairs in mismatched fabrics. Pile on contrasting sofa pillows for that lived in, at the beach kind of look.

2. Bedrooms are bedrooms, kitchens are kitchens. – In today’s world we live in every room, we eat in front of the TV, we use our devices in bed. So who says a room has to fit a mold? If you want to put a love seat in the breakfast area, do it! If you want to make your formal dining room the living room, go for it. This is especially true in an urban lifestyle. Space may be at a premium – use it wisely, give up on believing in labels. I have a client who has her piano in the entry. Why? Because she likes the light there and it makes her happy. You gotta go with that.

3. Use light colors in a small room. – Wrong! Small rooms demand impact and to hold their own with their larger siblings. A powder room in chocolate brown or high gloss pink says “look at me” and draws you in. Bold color statements give an identity and give the space that wow factor your home needs. Same with small rooms and furniture. Place one big chair and a table – keeping it simple but larger than life. Far better than too many small pieces, just a few actually enlarges the visual.

4. Stick to one style or period. – Well, yeah, if you want to be boring and have your room look like you bought it right off the showroom floor! Mid Century Modern and antiques look great together. Contemporary art with your Grandmothers Chippendale will give your room that one of a kind, unique look that tells the world you know what you are doing! Give your rooms character and have fun with it. Infuse your home with multiple styles and if you are hesitant, start small – a bookcase of old and new books with old family photos and a contemporary accessory gets you going!

5, Keep your rooms symmetrical. – One sofa, two matching chairs and a coffee table. That’s pretty much what we are taught. I’m a pretty OCD person myself, but asymmetry can free your soul. Hang art work to one side of the sofa, instead of right in the middle. Move your bed off-center to accommodate different size night tables, even different eras (See Rule 4). I love large windows with drapes swooped to one side, a la Lauren Bacall, leaving the other side open for the woodwork to show.

If you love it, bring it home. Have fun – be creative – go ahead, break some rules. And then make your own!

Although for many on the East Coast and the Midwest, summer may still seems a long way off, here in California we are already experiencing warmer day and more sunshine. I know I’m ready to pull up the blinds and open the windows and let the light and fresh air in.

Your home may also feel that it’s tired of closed up and wants to breath. Now is the time to look at ways to add freshness and vigor to your rooms and embrace the change of seasons.

Here are 5 great ideas that will chase away winter and get your home ready for spring:

Put away that old heavy comforter and invest in a brightly colored throw or coverlet for the bed. This season I’m seeing a whole new approach to prints and patterns. Stripes are always easy to mix and match with solid sheets and fun flower patterns reminiscent of the 1970’s are crazy fun and will add a smile to your face.

Pull out glass containers, vases and bowls. Here again, color is what’s happening. Don’t be afraid to experiment. In a garden window mix canary yellow, apple green and melon orange glass objects in different sizes. Don’t worry yet about adding flowers or fruit to the bowls and vases, let their color and shape alone be the interest factor.

Get Passionate for picture frames. So many of us put a photo from a holiday or vacation in a frame and there it sits, growing stale, for years and years. Take a good look at your frames, whether they are on a shelf or the piano. Discard dark colors and heavy woods and replace them with shell borders, glass on glass and brightly hued plastics. Not only will you see those photos in a new light, but the patterns and colors will brighten up the whole room.

Invest one new furniture piece.  We can’t always afford to throw everything out and start new, but often just one fresh item can change the whole room. This season wicker is making a big comeback – a colorful rocker or an ottoman/pouf in a colorful pattern is a quick inexpensive way to make a tired room look refreshed and brighter.  Small “drink tables” are always easy to find in so many styles, from metallics to stone top to wood and fit just about anywhere.

Open the windows. Heavy drapes collect dust and drag down the whole room visually. Now that we are seeing more sun, change them out for woven shades, billowy linen panels or just take them down and enjoy the view! Here color and pattern work wonders, allowing the sunlight to shine in, enhancing a basic window – taking if from drab to fab.

It’s already April! If you close your eyes, you can feel the change in the air.  Spring is right around the corner. Are you ready?

After a recent visit to Scandinavia and seeing how well they cope with short winter days, I learned about Hygge, the art of staying cozy, happy and positive during the winter months.  During this extra wet California season, we need this more than ever!

Capture as much light and sun as possible in these 5 easy ways:

1) Grab a Sunny Spot – Pull your favorite chair up to a window or glass door.  Not only can this be your personal refuge for reading or enjoying the change in seasons, the chair captures warmth from what sun there is and makes you feel comforted and safe. Just 30 minutes a day sitting there will give your body the amount of vitamin C it needs to keep your mind alive.

2) Let the Sun Shine In – Open up the window treatments.  Many of us grew up with the concept that to keep the cold out, close blinds and drapes.  This is not only unnecessary but makes our rooms darker and dismal.  If you have double paned windows, you don’t have to worry about heat loss and the morning sun is the best for starting your day off right.  In the winter, take down valances and cornices to expose as much of the window as possible.

3) Winter White – Scandinavians knew the secret to surviving winter darkness.  Living without sun for months on end made them experts.  Their secret was effective use of color.  White painted furniture and white washed walls made any room bright and cheerful, no matter how black the night (or day!).  Use light colors; add white, cream or linen colored pillows and throws around the room.  Ban dark and harsh colors from your home.

4) Grow a Winter Garden – You may not be able to plant outdoors, but this is the time for flowers and plants inside.  Succulents in a long wooden bowl in the kitchen window do great and add the green you crave. Start an herb garden! Bring home an orchid or bromeliad for the table and watch the smile it brings to your family’s face.

5) Get Motivated – Now might be the best time to plan ahead. Start thinking about changes and renovations you’ll be doing when it warms up. These gray days inside don’t have to be dismal – start that list, collect those links, talk to your designer, architect or landscaper – get them lined up and scheduled and on the calendar. It’s always nice to be ahead of things.. when spring comes, you’ll be ready!

Add your personal suggestions below.  Love to hear from you!

I wrote my first list of trends in 2013, 10 years ago.  Here we are almost to 2023 and how have they changed? Always so many new thoughts, ideas, concepts and creative designs.  I can only imagine what the new year will bring, and excited to see where the industry goes and what imaginative and fun rooms we will see.

Here are 3 trends I predict will be big in the new year.

Warmth makes a triumphant return: For the past few years we’ve seen bright colors make a huge splash… the lime greens, oranges and bright blues have become ubiquitous, as have all gray and white rooms.  I hope to see less of these cool colors and warm, homey hues make a comeback.  Look for browns, tans, and khaki to be used in rooms and on walls inside and out. Think the color of sandy beaches or animal fur.

Color by Sherwin-Willaims

Getting lost in big upholstery: Big, soft and enveloping furniture will be everywhere.  Sofas that are deep and over stuffed will help us forget the world outside and the stress of life.  We’ll want to sink in and be lost in comfort and tactile fabrics. Look for curvy and sexy sofas and chairs. Shape is the new thing – getting away from hard corners, stiff cushions and scratchy materials.

From Daily Dream Décor

Escaping the tech world:  In 2023, there will be a backlash against a TV in every room.  We will find that we need a place to decompress and escape, and there will be a big push for rooms that are tech free… quiet and peaceful.  I’d like to see libraries and rooms for reading and meditation becoming the must have in every home. We’ve learned a few things from the pandemic, having to all coexist in the same space. Quiet and calm is what we need now.

Happy New Year – Thrive In Your Space!

This post first appeared in 2014 – but every year people ask me for it again. So, another encore – HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Many of us live in a haunted house and don’t even realize it.  I don’t mean haunted in the traditional sense; like the kind you go to on Halloween or an abandoned mansion you may see in the movies.  But, our homes can be and often are haunted by the ghosts of our own furnishings.  We tend to keep possessions and stuff we don’t really need anymore.  Look around you…  do you still need to display that trinket you bought on your vacation in 1985?  How about the framed wall hanging that says “Have A Nice Day” your Aunt Ruth gave you for a housewarming gift when you moved in 20 years ago?  It’s time to go through and refresh your accessories.  Edit out what’s old and just a dust collector.  Arrange like things that are precious to you in a collection, not spread over every surface.

Another way you may be living in the past is your upholstery.  When was the last time you had those chairs recovered?  Maybe it’s time to stop living with what you liked when you first moved in and just haven’t really looked at in many years.  Over time, upholstery fades and discolors.  Wear and tear from a busy family really can take its toll on furniture.  Paint colors will change over time and can look dreary and drab.  Try freshening up those rooms with a modern color or new wallpaper.

Pictures and artwork can also really make your home feel dated and old.  Your tastes have probably changed, you might like abstracts now but just can’t part with the landscape you bought at a garage sale a few years back. Maybe there is art you’ve had since college, and it has memories.  But those memories might be holding you back, keeping you in the past.. when you should be looking to the future.

It’s easy to go day-to-day thinking that next year you’ll buy a new sofa, or paint the den or have that painting reframed.  But days turn into months and months into years, and before you know it.. you are living in a home from yesteryear.. Yes, a haunted house!  Haunted by old, used and sad furnishings and colors.  Make a change before those ghosts decide to just take over.

So, this year, go visit a real haunted house, don’t live in one!

It’s easy to say that inspiration is all around us, and of course it is. But often we may find it hard to translate that into our living environment. We look at our home and don’t know where to start. It’s important to find that something special that speaks to us and our vision and complete the interior we desire.

Everything in your home can be a source of inspiration. The idea for a room often begins with a single object: a family heirloom, a framed photo, a piece of fabric, that Merlot in your glass. Start from that single element that you love and watch the space take shape.

Even beyond that, inspiration can often be more obvious than you realize. That vacation you took last year to the beach or a visit to your local museum. The color of the sky or the leaves on a tree. Smell and sound can bring an idea to your mind. Music can inspire you visually. A song can bring the power to energize your space or be soothing and peaceful, and your home will reflect this.

I have helped clients create children’s rooms inspired by fairy tales or sports teams. We have painted stars and moons on ceilings of nurseries. A master suite enveloped in fabric can be a Moroccan fantasy and a South Seas paradise can be achieved by finding that right shade of blue you saw in Tahiti.  Anything is possible and the possibilities are endless.

Once you have landed on your inspiration, don’t feel pressured to move quickly. Let a room take shape naturally. It may take time for the elements to fuse together. Don’t be disillusioned or frustrated just because you have the perfect blue pillow but aren’t finding the sofa fabric to go with it. Keep an open mind, let the inspiration flow and allow the space to speak to you.

Finally, don’t be afraid to do the unexpected. It’s OK to take risks. Keep an open mind about your room and what it may be saying to you. Discover the hidden texture or spot of brilliance in your personal inspiration. Don’t be boxed in by convention!

I always try to help clients move just a bit further from their comfort zone. A home should be a personal statement.  Your finished space, if you let it, will spring from your inspiration and may just be the impetus for someone else’s imagination.

*Originally posted in 2017 – reposted by popular demand!

Taken from Insider.com

Pastel Palette’s are IN!

Aaron Lebowski, an interior designer and consultant at Juliei Salone, said this summer is all about bringing pastel colors into your space. He said colors like pink, yellow, and blue bring to mind summery images, like sunny days and pool parties. Adding soft colors elevates your mood. Often just an accent can bring a room to life!

Natural Materials indoors are IN!

Kate Diaz, interior designer and cofounder of Swanky Den, said we’ll see more natural materials in design choices this season because they bring the outdoors in. “Wood, stone, and leather are going to be big this summer,” Diaz said. Texture and tactile elements contribute for that indoor/outdoor lifestyle.

Floral Window Treatments are SO IN!

Florals are no longer just a trend of the past, according to Courtney Wollersheim, interior designer from FLOOR360. “Grandmillennial’ or ‘grandma chic’ is sneaking into many room styles as the summer season heats up because you need lots of florals and bold colors to achieve this look,” Wollersheim explained: “It’s very on-trend to recreate the comfort and coziness of grandma’s traditional style house with vintage pieces and floral fabrics for window curtains.” When incorporating florals, Wollersheim recommends mixing and matching tablecloth and window-curtain fabrics that are within the same color family.

The Movement to Arch Shaped Elements is IN!

Catherine Staples, lead designer at Aspen & Ivy, tells us arches are a timeless trend you’ll see more of this season. “From doorways to windows to mirrors and millwork, arches are a warm, whimsical way to elevate your space off the linear path,” Staples said. “I expect to see arched elements in design this summer in furniture as well.” Arches suggest a classic, European architectural addition – bringing even the most cookie cutter rooms a sophistication.

The Trend of Reclaimed Wood is SO OUT!

“The appeal of reclaimed wood kitchen tables, dining tables, chairs, coffee tables makes sense because it brings character and texture to any room,” Wollersheim said. But in recent years, she said, people are realizing there’s such a thing as too much reclaimed wood in a space. We recommend keeping one of your favorite pieces and contrasting it with glass accents and soft-cushioned chairs for a more holistic look. Beautiful, rich polished wood like walnut and mahogany up your game!

Overdone Rustic Interiors are OUT!

Known for its natural-looking aged look, the rustic interior-design style is on its way out. “It’s not that the rustic look is inherently bad, but the proliferation of it in homes can be overwhelming,” Lebowski said. He said you can find balance by having one or two rustic elements in your home, but you might not want to overdo it. Shiplap can be so 2010 – it’s time to move on to a more finished look in your home.

All White Interiors are OUT!

Toussaint Derby, a lead designer at Havenly, said sleek, all-white interiors are going to be replaced with colorful ones. She told Insider “the all-white aesthetic may have felt a little too cold and impersonal” so it’s falling out of favor as people try to cozy up their spaces. Try an accent wall in lime green, periwinkle blue or salmon to add a punch to your space!

Minimalism is OUT!

According to luxury interior designer Margarita Bravo, monochromatic spaces just aren’t as welcoming as other design choices. “People are spending more time in their homes, and they want a more welcoming, inviting space with the use of different materials, textures, and accent colors,” Bravo said. There is a warmth and coziness to creating an environment that mixes textures, colors and styles. Maximalism rules!

What are the trends you’d like to see take a hike and what ones are you open to embracing in your space?