Peter Mikic designed a custom sofa with plenty of curves to soften the squareness of the kitchen/sitting room in his home in Oxfordshire, to the northwest of London. Then, to balance what he calls the “undulating” waves of the sofa and play off the black fireplace, he added two mid-century modern Swedish chairs found on 1stDibs.
For lighting, he chose a Serge Mouille lamp, while on the floor, he laid a custom rug with four different colors and pile heights that echoes the lines of the warm wood paneling.
To imbue this family room with happy vibes, Sasha Adler upholstered the modular sofa in a bold and uplifting black-and-white buffalo check. For storage, she designed stadium seating and covered it in a vibrant teal. Nearby, a game table flanked by a pair of chairs offers a stage for Lego masterpieces and the like.
“The whole idea was the room that Renzo Mongiardino did for Lee Radziwill,” Charlotte Barnes says of the cozy den she designed in her home. To get the look, Barnes clad the fireplace wall in Penny Morrison’s Jamawar fabric, then framed the television with rattan and mirrored candleholders.
“I have a red alert for anything ‘antler’ from 1stDibs,” says the designer, explaining the horned items just above the TV, a mix of faux and genuine. “The guy in the center is just a wonderful old, wood-carved deer,” she confesses. Real or not, they can be gazed at from the well-loved George Spencer club chairs she’s reupholstered “a thousand times!”
For a “Gatsby-era house” in Westchester, New York, designer David Kleinberg selected two pieces from the first half of the 20th century, both found on 1stDibs. One, a two-tiered Maison Jansen cocktail table thought to have been designed sometime in the 1940s, is made of iron and glass with stunning polished-brass details. The other, a French Art Deco–era side table, sits near the sofa. You can almost imagine rings on its surface left by a gin-rickey glass, holding Gatsby’s favorite drink.
A sexy hammered-gold bar is the focal point of this media room by New York’s Hines Collective. Playing off the bar’s arch, the designers built a custom curved sofa they say “engulfs the room.” Above it hangs a light fixture by Aqua Creations, chosen in large part for its scale. Pulling the whole look together is an Art Deco rug by Doris Leslie Blau with a “unique angular pattern” that contrasts with the room’s undulating lines.
“This room was all about crafting comfort in a timeless way,” Jeremiah Brent says of his home’s serene family room. Deploying “a monochromatic, Halston-inspired palette,” Brent set a custom Mario Bellini Camaleonda sectional in a deep chocolate velvet against subtle clay-colored walls and finished the floor with a custom mohair rug by Marc Phillips.
Should they choose to, the family can turn off the antique brass gallery lights and cozy around a roaring fire framed by the antique French farmhouse mantel from Pittet, a 1stDibs find. It’s the perfect way to savor a space Brent describes as “rooted in the intimacy of connection.”
“We wanted it to be kind of monolithic,” Yellow House Architects founder Elizabeth Graziolo says of the “very long, generous, comfortable sofa” in the den she designed for a famed Art Deco building in Manhattan. To instill a sense of softness, she upholstered the piece in a caramel-colored mohair fabric from Schumacher and clad the walls in a suede wallpaper from Phillip Jeffries.
For texture and a dash of excitement, Graziolo added playful zebra-hide-covered pillows from FORSYTH that she found on 1stDibs.
Steven Gambrel used texture to provide “warmth and complexity” in the work/dining space of a 19th-century townhouse. Indeed, whether it’s the subtle mix of textiles on the Trocadero chairs from Roche Bobois, the contrasting surfaces of the graceful travertine Osvaldo Borsani table or the cleverly layered rugs, the blending of materials is exciting.
If the surfaces vary, the elegance is consistent, as exemplified by the pairing of a 1930 Swedish Grace pedestal desk attributed to Carl Malmsten for Bodafors with a brace of Jean Pascaud chairs.
To counterbalance the abundant light of a sun-drenched Hamptons home, Ries Hayes created a “little nest” in the form of a television room/office space. In addition to saturating the room in indigo blue, the designers slipcovered the owner’s existing sofa in a deep navy linen.
The rug, also the owner’s, neatly weds the color of the sofa with the rich hue of the comfy leather club chair just opposite. A small Moroccan tile table provides the finishing touch.
For “a little jewel box of a space that feels cozy and well appointed,” designer Zoe Feldman used a sectional sofa from Holly Hunt that “wraps the room and offers a soft landing at any spot.”
She paired that with a burl-wood waterfall coffee table from 1stDibs and a classic Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair for “an iconic moment.” Also from 1stDibs is a 1970s pencil-reed rattan side table that contributes a contrasting texture. Why the seemingly disparate periods and materials? “I really believe that all good design has an element of tension to it,” Feldman says.
