My Designs: Thoughts on a Design Process
I had seen this picture in a magazine, it was of Atlanta's Suzanne Kasler's dining room and the lovely pink draperies struck me as such a daring choice, and yet, they were so beautiful. Several weeks later I had an appointment with a client whom I profiled earlier and I mentioned that I wanted to bring pink into her room. The walls of her living room were already painted in a light celadon, darker celadon stripe (or maybe they are more of an aqua) and she wanted to keep the stripes. Pink would go nicely with them, but the hue had to be deeper than Kasler's pink. The next time I came over I brought several taffeta samples from cerise to fuchsia and the design took off from there. We chose a large Chelsea Editions cherry check and a gorgeous Lee Jofa classic chintz to bring the deep pink in. A celadon Nancy Corzine silk grounded the custom sofa and another Chelsea Textiles seabreeze small check graced the Swedish sofa.
The crowning fabric, though, was a complete afterthought to fix a huge mistake. Originally a pale Bennison linen was to go on the skirted table. Once it arrived, it just died where it lain and at a great personal expense I added this gorgeous damask, in, of course, a berry color. The adjoining walk-in bar was repapered in a deep pink Cowtan and Tout oriental toile.
To look at the finished room it bears no resemblance in any way to the original inspiration picture, which is strange. What I do know, is, that if I hadn't originally brought this picture of Kasler's dining room to my client, her room would look completely different today.
