Category Archives: Home Design

A Decade Of Gorgeous Design Leadership In Hartford

by Categorized: Accessories, Beds And Bedrooms, Decorating, Design, Fabric, Flooring, Furniture, Home Design, Home Products, Remodeling And Renovation, Rugs And Carpets, Upholstery, Wallpaper Date:
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DesignSource4Driving along I-84 through Hartford you can’t help but notice the big white wedding cake of a building near the highway in Parkville, at the corner of Park Street and Bartholomew. What you might not know is that for the past decade this former industrial site has housed an interior design paradise that has truly elevated the quality of interior design in Connecticut.

DesignSourceExteriorThis week, DesignSourceCT celebrated its tenth anniversary — 10 years of making exceptional home design products available to interior designers and homeowners in our region.

Founded by Nancy Zwiener and interior designer Richard Ott, DesignSourceCT has upped the knowledge base of area designers and their clients. It has hosted numerous special events and presentations over the years — everything from fabric shows to new collections from luminaries such as Philip Gorrivan and Alexander Julian, workshops on flower arranging by White House floral designer Ruth Loiseau, a seminar by Steve Nobel on how to effectively market and grow one’s interior design business, and educational programs on flooring, rug construction, choosing upholstery, how to work with a designer and more. DesignSourceCT also has sponsored programs for young, aspiring designers, and some of the classes offer designers Continuing Education Units.  designsource-Scott-Kravet-Mcandrews-

DesignSource-Porcelains-WoikeThe core business — housed in 20,000 square feet of elegant, space with high ceilings, massive pillars and floating fabric panels — is a one-stop, to-the-trade destination. It brims with numerous rows of fabric and wallpaper samples, furniture, lamps, drapery hardware, accessories, and many room vignettes to help inspire ideas.

The quality level is top-notch — fabrics and trims by the likes of Scalamandre, Brunschwig & Fils, Thibaut, Schumacher, Old World Weavers, Lee Jofa and Kravet, the kind of high-end products that once were available only to Connecticut residents and their designers willing to make the trek to New York or Boston. DesignSourceCT became a hub of design in the region, with other design-related businesses — lighting, rugs, custom workrooms — clustering in the same building.

DesignSourceCT-HandoutThe past 10 years haven’t been a cakewalk, though. DesignSourceCT expanded with some ancillary businesses within the building at 1429 Park St., including a designer consignment shop called Design Finds and a lamp shop. During the challenging economic days of 2009, the business had to retrench and consolidated back to its core.

DesignSource-Tassel-Poisson

 

These days, DesignSourceCT is increasingly open to retail clients who might not have ever worked with a designer before.

“We haven’t thrown the doors open,”Nancy Zwiener told me this week. People still don’t just wander in and shop around on their own.

Rather, DesignSource has added emphasis on its “designer on call” program, headed up by interior designer Nancy Perkins.

She focuses on smaller projects, sometimes simply helping with a floor plan, guiding a customer through the thousands of options available, perhaps designing just one room.

That of course, often leads to another … and another, once clients gain an understanding of how it all works, and that working with a pro often will save them money in the long run and avoid costly mistakes or problems.

DesignSourceFabrics-Woike“It’s a learning curve,” Nancy Zwiener said. Many people have to overcome a “fear barrier” about working with a professional designer — a trepidation that their own ideas and budget will get lost in the process.

The folks at DesignSourceCT — including the original team of six — celebrated their 10th anniversary this week with ice cream and cookies in that wonderful white layer cake of a building. I’d like to add candles on that cake in their honor! Here’s to many more decades of beautiful, elegant, well-designed success at DesignSourceCT.

DesignSourceCT is at 1429 Park St. in Hartford, 860-951-3145, designsourcect.com

Photos, from top:

The original team at DesignSourceCT, still together after 10 years, celebrate this week: From left, Alice Brash; Kathy Leduc-Silver; co-owners Nancy Zwiener and Richard Ott; Nancy Perkins and Linda Graydon (Photo by NANCY SCHOEFFLER)

Scott Kravet presents a fabric show at DesignSourceCT (Photo by MICHAEL McANDREWS).

Chinese porcelains are among the many accessories on display (Photo by JOHN WOIKE).

Room vignettes (Handout).

Fabric and trim designed by Alexander Julian, shown during his presentation at DesignSourceCT for interior designers (Photo by CLOE POISSON).

A few of the numerous racks of fabric samples at DesignSourceCT (Photo by JOHN WOIKE).

Below, Richard Ott and Nancy Zwiener ham it up in 2005, shortly after they opened DesignSourceCT (Photo by SHANA SURECK).

Ott and Zwiener-2005-Sureck

 

 

 

 

Does That House Look Flat-Chested?

by Categorized: Architecture, Heritage, Historic Houses, Home Design, Mid-Century Modern Date:
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glass-houseArchitect Philip Johnson, who designed the renowned Glass House (above) in New Canaan, was part of the remarkable “Harvard Five” — gutsy young architects who put Mid-Century Modern home design on the map and made the quiet Connecticut town of New Canaan an international hub of it.

In 1978 Johnson remarked with amusement that Frank Lloyd Wright had told him the buildings looked “flat-chested.”

Here’s my story on the Harvard Five — Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen and Eliot Noyes —  www.courant.com/harvardfive

And here is the Modern Homes Survey of about 90 Modern houses in New Canaan: www.courant.com/modernhomesJohansen

John Johansen House, designed in 1949, with a living room wall across the back that was almost entirely glass. (Wayne Andrews/ From “The Harvard Five,” courtesy of William D. Earls)

 

 

 

 

 

Radiant Orchid: A Hue For You?

by Categorized: Color, Decorating, Design, Furniture, Home Design, Home Products Date:
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Ellen Kennon, a friend in Louisiana who is one of the top interior design color experts in the country, has been musing about the colors that various paint companies and color pros recently have tapped as their color of the year for 2014 — including Benjamin Moore’s “Breath of Fresh Air,” Colour Futures’ muted teal, PPG’s Turning Oakleaf (a buttery cream), Sensational Color’s gray.

But Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, is the color world’s mostly closely watched color expert — and today Pantone made it official: The color of the year for 2014 is Radiant Orchid.

Radiant OrchidI don’t know about you, but in my own home this eye-popping color is a color that pops up only in flower pots. Overused around the house, it could almost give you a toothache.

Maybe my eye will get used to this “enchanting harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones” that “inspires confidence and emanates great joy, love and health.”

Maybe.

Actually, I’m sure it will, because the color of the year doesn’t just show up in home decor; it permeates the more fleeting spectrum of the world of fashion, too. We’ll be flooded with fuchsia pants and purses and prom dresses before you know it.

Even so, when I think about how the folks at Pantone have sent us zigzagging from Chili Pepper (2007) to Blue Iris (2008) to bright yellow Mimosa ((2009) to Turquoise (2010) to Honeysuckle pink (2011) to Tangerine (2012) to Emerald Green (2013), I realize that Radiant Orchid is just the latest in zingy accent colors. Not necessarily meant for your living room wall, but for a pop, a punch, a bit of purple pizzazz.

Undoubtedly there are some people still ruing the hue of their emerald green couch who will confidently spin the color wheel to Radiant Orchid.

But you might want to start out using it sparingly.

 

Caution: These Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes Are Killer

by Categorized: Children, Design, Do It Yourself, Furniture, Historic Houses, Home Design, Mid-Century Modern Date:
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I just happened upon a very amusing blog called Projectophile — written by Clare Fauke, a married Chicago mother of three and passionate do-it-yourselfer who describes her style as “Mid-Century Modern meets keeping-dangerous-things-away-from-small-children.”

Hence one of her particularly hilarious posts: “15 Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes that will Kill Your Children.”

Here’s a sampling, with Clare’s comments:

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— That’s going to require at least ten stitches.

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— This stylish modern mother is too absorbed in her reading to notice that all her children have fallen into the living room garden.

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— For goodness sake, don’t send your kids trick-or-treating near a mid-century modern home.

And if you do a lot of your furniture shopping on Craigslist, as Clare does, you’ll appreciate her Projectophile post titled “25 Most Dangerous Craigslist Adjectives Exposed.”

As in:

Fun: You can’t actually sit on it; you can only look at it, or fall off of it.

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— What a FUN chair!