Pop Goes The Parlor
Living Room by Cheryl Smith Associates
What could be more delightful than a living room that feels alive? Say goodbye to staid — Cheryl Smith and Audrey Helms’ great room pairs classic style with insouciant color to create an exuberant ambiance for the home’s most public room.
“It’s comfortable — you feel like you can relax in this space,” says Cheryl. “It isn’t intimidating; it invites you in and says ‘come play with us’. It’s a joyful way to enter the home.”
The designers’ blend of refined, traditional furniture with an inspired palette of lime green, orange and burgundy red is punctuated by bold patterns and textural variety, giving this gathering place a hip, modern edge without sacrificing sophistication.
“We started with a big, rustic room,” Cheryl explains, “but we wanted to give it more of a contemporary feel. We were looking to have a real pop! when you walked in the front door, so we did that with the color and texture — and we love layering a lot of patterns.”
Pulling together such diverse elements — polka dots and nubbly raw silk on the twin barrel chairs, calligraphic swirls and bold stripes on the sofa and armchair, and the Mondrian color blocks of the carpet — requires great confidence and skill, but Cheryl and Audrey somehow make it appear gracefully effortless. Even the quartet of whimsical wildlife portraits watching over the setting are seamlessly integrated into the mix.
The result is vibrant, but not overwhelming. It’s a statement, most certainly, but one that is openhearted. “We’re here,” it asserts. “Join the party.”
