Looking to make your living space into a home? Design experts Lisa Escobar and Austrie Messer of Lisa Escobar Design suggest starting with rooms with a point of view.
By using your color palette and mixing in accents, they said, you can personalize areas to suit your tastes and reflect your passions.
“Design is all about layering,” Escobar said, “textures, colors, patterns, and materials.”
Start by spreading the hues. Test paint colors with lights on and off and at different times — morning, midday and night. Lighting, both natural and artificial, will affect how color appears on walls and against furniture. Painting small spaces with brighter or lighter colors will add variation and expansiveness; dark colors, and black, make spaces feel smaller.
Trust yourself, Messer said — don’t let other people’s opinions dictate your space. But remember, variety adds vitality — too much of any one color can become overwhelming and monotonous.
Once you’ve picked your colors, accessorize. Hang your photos and pictures. Remember your tunes (album covers) and your travels (maps and plane tickets).
Take your time, Escobar said. Building the collection that gives each space character will take months or years. As you collect, curate — too many small accessories can become clutter rather than points of interest.
After walls come floors, and carpet. Consider function, Escobar said. In a dining room, you should be able to pull all of your chairs out from underneath the table and have chair legs still be on the rug. Add about 24 inches onto the side of each table to gauge optimal rug size.
When furnishing, size matters. Oversized dressers and tables will make an already tiny space seem tinier and will block light from windows. And with spaces of all sizes, stay fluid. Don’t push all furniture completely against the wall, she said, and don’t be afraid to rearrange regularly.
Finish with window dressings. Draperies hung a few inches from the ceiling and “kissing” the floor will make your windows appear larger and make a room feel more spacious, Escobar said.
If you intend to close and reopen draperies, panels should have a combined width 2 to 2½ times the window width, Escobar said.
Curtains meant solely as window framers can round down to 1½ times window width. To increase natural luminescence, put mirrors by windows to let light bounce off.
These ideas enlightened during a recent presentation at the Elysian West community on Jerry Tarkanian Way in Las Vegas, Elysian Living Marketing and Lifestyle Director Alysha Daicy said.
“Our residents thoroughly enjoyed having Lisa and Austrie share their expertise, and everyone picked up a lot of great ideas,” she said.
Escobar said she and Messer enjoyed the experience.
“We loved sharing tips and tricks with the residents of Elysian West,” Escobar said. “Many of those attending our talk were very design savvy and we enjoyed sharing some ideas they can implement at home to make their lives better. We even did a walk-through of an apartment at the end of the event and had a chance to collaborate on some ideas. I give Elysian a lot of credit for providing education to residents.”
NUTS AND BOLTS:
Storage: Pieces with double function such as ottomans, stackable hangers can increase closet capacity.
Scent: Candles and diffusers add artful aromas.