Ep. 473: Best of Archives: Traditional Design with a Twist with Katie Rosenfeld

19:38How to Decorate Team:it's not but and even so i mean again you would be surprised it's really cold up here and people are really their homes or their havens, I think, in a different way because we're stuck in them so often because of the inclement weather. But, you know, that doesn't mean that people want to have chintz drapes. I think everyone up here, again, is very practical. And is it is the sun going to fade it? Is the cold going to affect it? So it's all about, yes, it's traditional, but we also have a big city, right? So with the big city comes the high rises and with the high rises comes the sort of the rote kind of default to modern aesthetic, which is not necessarily my - Cup of tea.

20:28How to Decorate Team:Natural. It's not what I can do, right? It's not what I offer that well. I can do it. I have done it. I'm doing it right now. But as I said, I feel like my clients who ask me to do that are getting like they're getting a different part of me but not necessarily my bread and butter what I'm best at um and there are historic homes up here and there are tons of them and they're gorgeous but just because they're I mean how can I say this just because there are lovely historic homes up here doesn't mean that everybody will decorate them in in in a way that respects them number one that's fair decorating to me is such a personal thing and it really you have to want to do it you have to want to spend the time you have to want to spend the money you have to want to take on the pursuit of it a lot of times the practicality of the yankee mindset people just don't care as much does that make any sense no you know everybody has said that it's a luxury

21:27Katie Rosenfeld:Like this is, you know, having your home designed and decorated is a luxury. So to your point, when they're too practical, I can see how you're like, no, you need this chance. This will make the room. And they're like, ah, do I?

21:43How to Decorate Team:And you're like, but I see the price tag. Yeah. And you'd be surprised. I mean, again, people up here just aren't sort of as showy or ostentatious, really. If I were in New York, maybe it would be different. And certainly when I lived in Los Angeles, but Boston's a really kind of, it's the most conservative liberal place you'll ever find.

22:04Katie Rosenfeld:Well, do you think there's a certain exuberance in the South that we like in all things, whether that's food, fashion, houses? Definitely. We can go a little over the top. Okay. I want to get to some practical points. Yeah, yeah. Because I have seen your work and I am ready to like, everyone needs to know how to do it because you do it so well. Okay. You even said it, like chintz has always been in for you, but you're reinventing it and doing it in new ways.

22:32How to Decorate Team:What was the latest way you used chintz? I'm using a lot of it now. Well, it's hard because it's cotton, right? So it isn't the most practical thing. And it's certainly not practical with a family. So you're almost relegated to using it as either decorative elements like pillows or drapes. and if you're going to use it as drapes you know it's kind of decadent it will it will get sun faded if it's not lined properly or if it's in a really sort of warm climate at the beach or something like that right now i'm using a lot of chintz but again i i have to think of it when i decorate a house i want it to look good 15 years from now and i want my clients to still love it 15 years from now.

23:15How to Decorate Team:And the biggest compliment, I guess, that I would consider would be for somebody to call me to do another home, but not to read. I actually might hurt to have somebody call and say, I want to refresh what you already did. Because I think the sign of doing something timeless is having it last, right? You shouldn't have to redecorate for a long, long time. but I'm digressing. So what have I used chintz for? I don't necessarily think I'm using it in different ways. I think I'm just using it liberally. Okay. That's totally a good answer.

23:50Katie Rosenfeld:Sorry. I do think that we need to describe chintz to our listener who maybe is not as much a traditionalist as you. Give just like a 20 second chintz lesson.

24:01How to Decorate Team:So it's printed or blocked fabric, right? With a pattern on it. And typically it would be floral. It can be glazed, which makes it kind of shiny or it can be unglazed, which is a little more matte, but it's 100 % cotton. So there's no linen, there's no poly, there's no other fabric content in it. So it's very light and airy and sort of, it has like a very sort of sundress, summer sundress kind of feel to it. It's not extremely durable. So it's not something that you would use on upholstery unless, Unless, you know, the home is one that's being used rarely or if you've got clients who are super precious about the way they live and, you know, they're going to put plastic on the sofa or something like that.

24:49How to Decorate Team:But for my guys, I mean, it would get ripped up, torn up in a second. So it's delicate. Okay.

24:56Katie Rosenfeld:Okay. What do you, what is like the advantage of a chins? I mean, to me, it's like the artistry. It's like, it's art and like the color palette.

25:05How to Decorate Team:mm-hmm well it's very set the colors can be really saturated on that cotton right when you see a print on linen and you see a print on chintz it looks two different ways and oftentimes there are fabrics like iconic fabrics old fabrics that you know brundwig or one of these really old sort of historic companies will make and they'll print it on linen and on chintz both and you can put them side by side and the linen has this sort of earthy sort of kind of almost sun dyed kind of quality to it whereas the chintz is really vibrant and really clean and really crisp and bright. Like in anything if the material that you use to apply the color to is going to translate that color in a different way and chintz to me is for someone who really wants to embrace that crisp, bright, sort of in bloom kind of feeling.

26:04Katie Rosenfeld:Okay. I have more technical questions. You ready? Keep going. I'm ready. Okay. I don't know if you'll be able to answer them. This is something that I am cringing at because I grew up with it. So this goes back to like, how do we evolve things? But you do it so well. You got that super traditional pillows on the beds with the big, like two, three inch ruffled flange. I'm like, I knew I had that. I know I had that on my bed. So to me, I cannot do that. How do we do it? Very Laura Ashley. Yeah, that's what it reminds me of. And I can't wash it from my brain to make it cool. And then I was looking at Katie's work and I was like, why is this working?

26:44Katie Rosenfeld:Like literally sitting there being like, why is this working so well?

26:47How to Decorate Team:And I can't do it. Oh gosh. You can do it. All the cool kids are doing it now, which actually makes me annoyed. You can do it, but you have to juxtapose it, right with something edgy and cool so i think you're probably talking about i'm thinking of my own bedroom which is just swathed in a really old albert hadley floral made by schumacher and the wallpapers the floral the drapes the drapes actually aren't the floral but every piece of upholstery is the floral and i have shams made out of that same floral with a ruffle but in that room what you don't see is there's a tattered oriental rug and a kind of modern light fixture from urban electric on the ceiling and i'm trying to think what else oh i've got some really contemporary art in that room so if you kind of scan around the room and start dissecting it all of the elements are actually disparate and it doesn't feel like laura ashley 1990 it feels like wait this is kind of cool.

27:53How to Decorate Team:I would bet if you had to remove all the art, you wouldn't think the room was as cool as you think it is.

28:02Katie Rosenfeld:That's fair. You also had a guest bed and you had a needlepoint pillow in front that said, I can't or something like that. I can't even or something, some silly phrase, again, to your point, that was a little more of a comic, Jonathan Adler feel. And then, yeah, and then this

28:20How to Decorate Team:again big old ruffle behind it and it worked fantastic right i think needlepoint is also having a huge moment right now don't you yeah yeah well i think that's it that to me again is

28:33Katie Rosenfeld:all of the like grand millennial sort of trends it all to me goes back to that artistry like i love you know i think we're in this world that's so you know processed and machine made and like global that having something in your home that has that really handmade quality to it like a needlepoint or a trim or a you know even like a pleated lampshade like it it's that artistry that i that i find so appealing because it there's not it's bespoke yeah it doesn't feel as

29:07How to Decorate Team:although i will say that pillow that you're referring to is actually something i bought at furbish studio lest i make the readers think that i actually needlepointed at myself in your free time. Clearly did not. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, often it's funny. I know a lot of people who do needlepoint and I wish I were one of them, but I simply just don't have the patience or the attention span to do it. It would probably be really good for me to learn. But I do think needlepoint, yeah, all of those things sort of harken back to the days when people made everything from scratch, which is a lovely nostalgic feeling that I think we all yearn for and crave, especially in this day and age when the world is just so upside down.

29:51How to Decorate Team:Everybody wants to feel sort of that feeling of cozy, homey, whether it's in food, it's in fashion, it's in design. You know, I think all of that, there's a reason why that's also popular right now. And it's because things are so insane. Right. You know, if things were different, I wonder if the trends would be different. I bet you they would. So. Okay.

30:12Katie Rosenfeld:I'm I'm going to go back to your bedroom real quick and use that as an example, because I was curious. Okay, you say you have this Oliver pattern. It's in your bathroom too, right? It is in my bathroom. Like she kept going. But then you had the modern art. So I'm curious, which one was your starting point? Was it the art that then you wanted to contrast with the floral? Or did you just love this floral and then you acquired the art to kind of...

30:34How to Decorate Team:Oh, gosh, no. I've had... Yeah, I mean, the things that I have on my walls, I've had forever and ever and ever. So the art I had, but in a previous iteration, I'm trying to think what my bedroom looked. Well, previously I was in an apartment in Boston, a very modern apartment. So the same art lived with contemporary stuff. And then prior to that, I was in a really charming sort of Nantucket Cape style house that was incredibly traditional. And that art lived there. When I renovated the house that I'm living in now, I knew that I wanted to do a huge floral pattern in my bedroom. I just knew it.

31:16How to Decorate Team:And I knew that that was the one. And no matter what, I was doing it. And that art was going to go in there as it always has been in my bedroom. So again, I'm a big believer of collect things that you love and they'll work in any environment. And so I just took what I would have stuck in my bedroom anyway and stuck it in there. And it works for me. My husband actually freaked out when I first picked that pattern. He thought it was really kind of homely and overwhelming. And it's also black and gray and beige and brown. It doesn't have any color in it. So, you know, it's unexpected. If you're going to do a floral, you think you're going to get color.

32:01How to Decorate Team:But in this case, there is none, which I thought was kind of cool.

32:05Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. I love that print. just because to your point, it's like when you think floral, I think any one would go straight to multiple colors. And it just was, it's so impactful with its starkness.

32:20How to Decorate Team:I'm really going through sort of like a brown black phase right now. Yeah. You were talking on your videos about how you're in like a muddy, you're like, I want it muddy. I think that again, I feel like I'm not the only one. I think of other designers that I respect a lot and their work right now it's moody and and kind of earthy and muddy and you know probably goes again with our demeanor like you were saying yeah for sure I think I think just like anything and all of those colors are also kind of translated into fashion so like you know even the past couple of seasons you've seen the resurgence of like like chocolate brown and caramel and marigold and olive green and, you know, all of these things that maybe five, six, seven, eight years ago would have been like, you know, are really, really like dirty.

33:15How to Decorate Team:They want to look dirty.

33:16Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. And right now it does. It feels like you can bring in those tones again. Yeah. Maybe it is. We're all just a little, a little depressed.

33:24How to Decorate Team:No, I'm I think it's just coming out of the pandemic you know it's just we've all been through such a historic moment right so it had to have some effect on all of these creative pursuits right

33:38Katie Rosenfeld:yeah well I love that we um well no we I was just thinking back to we did that episode about picking paint with Fran Keenan and she talks about nuances that and that's kind of the word I always go back to when I think of like a muddy color because it's not it's not clear. So it's not so obviously one shade. It's a blend of shades. And that is what makes it interesting. It's not hitting you in the face with what it is, I guess. It's more. right moody yeah right but you know if if i'm being honest a lot of these things kind of crack

34:14How to Decorate Team:me up because you know i'm hardly a spring chicken in this industry um i'm 53 so not the kid on the block anymore and i remember when hunter green and burgundy and gold were we're thinking back in the 80s and 90s. Yes. So elegant. And then, you know, God forbid you have a Hunter Green. Right. God forbid you have a Hunter Green room post, you know, 2001. I mean, people would laugh. And then here we are with Hunter Green and Foxblood, I guess you call it now. It's no longer called Burgundy. Yeah.

34:52Katie Rosenfeld:You're just going to rebrand it. You got to rebrand the name. Exactly. Yeah.

34:56How to Decorate Team:That's all we're doing. Totally. Totally. Eggplant. Call it whatever you want. Exactly. Exactly.

35:03Katie Rosenfeld:And you did a room in it recently. One of your work shows, again, a very striped sofa, a small stripe. And then all the color is that deep kind of burgundy color, again, that I should fully cringe because I remember my mom's house being just all the colors you said. But it is very, it was beautiful. The room you did was beautiful. you had put in natural elements and the blinds behind had that good feeling that it just felt really comfortable and layered and anyway all what we want right now like you said but had you been like it's going to be burgundy and hunter green i would have been like shut it down shut right exactly exactly taryn i feel like you're branding this wrong i wonder if you're okay if you're looking at the same thing i'm looking at i i would call that color wine oh because i would not use burgundy as the color yeah i will say though that i'm loving that purpley burgundy and that that purple to me we've long discussed my obsession with purple because i feel like for so long like no one would touch purple you would never see purple but i feel like it's more and more coming out and it's it is like a more purpley red versus a 90s burgundy you know what i mean oh i love the 90s burgundy see i told you yeah i mean yes bring it back i'm not even i think i

36:30How to Decorate Team:think you're right i think it's just all semantics i mean it is country club hunter green that people are painting their cabinets right now it's the most green is the most popular color and And, you know, if you look at these images that people are really loving and all of these European kitchens that are getting so much attention, it's literally like Dartmouth Country Club green.

36:55Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah.

36:56How to Decorate Team:On the dark and the light side. So, you know, I think branding has a lot to do with everything and how you feed it to people. Right. Yeah. So if you feed it to people that, you know, you want the walls to be hunter green with pink gingham drapes and a, you know, moose hanging off the wall, you're going to shut it down. But, you know, you can package it differently and somebody will eat it up.

37:22Katie Rosenfeld:mm-hmm oh yeah for sure and i'm probably one of them yeah um because you even again you have uh you have like plates on the wall which again i would be like okay like not okay i did love that plate wall but i the thing that threw well not threw me but i loved about it i guess is it's very irregular which i felt like made it that was a stretch position

37:49How to Decorate Team:You know, like it was, there was no credit for that plate wall because my client actually did that over COVID. So truth be told, the wall is curved and very kind of wiggity. It's not a straight wall. And she just, I think, started collecting kind of old quirky pieces of transferware that she found on Cherish and Etsy. And, you know, like all of us during the pandemic, I think she started buying things online that she loved and formed things. this collection and she hung them herself. So, so in all fairness, I can't take credit for that wall, but, but I have been known to do a good plate wall. And, and, and I do think in all of my work, I think there's a sense of imperfection that I find necessary in order to have it feel comfortable to me.

38:40How to Decorate Team:Um, when things look too orchestrated or too perfect, they feel really uncomfortable for me. So if something's like even like slightly crooked or an inch off, that is some an important element that I like to maintain. Not all my clients are comfortable with it. You know, quite honestly, I think most people really like things to be just so, but I think there's something really cool and really warm and charming about something being just like slightly off.

39:14Katie Rosenfeld:Well, I guess in reality, you need a little of both in each room, probably some things that are just so, and then some things that are off, like you can't only have one.

39:24How to Decorate Team:Right. Or I mean, the element of not matching, you know, that, that is a big thing for me. If everything in the room matches to me, that's really boring. I love to throw something in there that doesn't match at all, but works. And that's, I think, don't you think that's the key to like style? It's the key to dressing. It's the key to decorating. It's the key to cooking. You know, you've got to throw in that curveball.

39:54Katie Rosenfeld:Well, I also think that like it's way harder. I mean, I want to tell my friends, like I have this one friend who is always like, okay, does this match? I'm like, will you quit it? Like you're making this way harder on yourself than it needs to be. the blues do not have to match that would be like so difficult unless you're shopping in one place I mean sure I'm not going to discourage you from going to Ballard and buying everything there and then your blues will match but don't limit yourself to only matching blues because then you have this teeny teeny teeny pool of items that you can pick from so yeah and also again I love

40:33How to Decorate Team:it when something's a little off. So if you're wearing, you know, a bunch of cobalt, I think there's something kind of cool about throwing some green or some turquoise or some yellow in there. I think just, you know, it's different people have different comfort zones, right? And mine is all over the place.

40:54Katie Rosenfeld:But there are a few instances where you do a lot of matching, like your bedroom or that great green dining room. So walk us through like, okay, when is an all over print your choice?

41:11How to Decorate Team:Well, I mean, that's a very old way of decorating, right? And it's so simple and so almost intuitive. Anyone can do it, I think, right? I mean, anybody. pattern slapping everywhere right right i think the key is and again i've been doing it a long time when it wasn't so much in favor as it is becoming now but the key is just that the print is really compelling that it's super graphic or super strong in some way and in the case of that dining room i mean that green fabric is so dense that it's almost like nothing could compete with it. So when we decided to use it, I was sort of like, we have to just go full on camo or it almost loses its effect.

42:02How to Decorate Team:And I think the same kind of thing goes for my bedroom. You know, that camouflage effect can be really, really cozy and calming. I've even done it with an animal print. Like many, many years ago, I did a bedroom and head to toe, you know, that Brunswick Latouche and print that bedroom I got an email a week you know about that bedroom but for whatever reason when you decorate that way I think it's really it can it's really appealing to someone who likes that kind of thing and really unappealing to someone who doesn't very polarizing but again I think as long as you pick the right print it's super effective and it's as old as the hills and will never go out of style.

42:46Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. I just love a point of view. I think that's what it is. Like, even if I love or hate it, like the fact that this person went all in, like I love a commitment. And I think that's what I love about one of those, those rooms that are just like, they let the confetti go out and the whole room is all the same. And you're like, wow, okay, this is not my pattern. I don't want to live in this room, but I super appreciate the effect yeah i mean it's the same way i feel about myself that sometimes you're like i don't know what's going on but they really like they owned it so yeah i like that for sure first thing too with the that you know the pine hollyhock in your room or that green in the dining room the pattern is so this the repeat is so big that you almost have to do it on every surface because otherwise you're not really getting a full re you're not getting to see every part of the pattern so right versus using it everywhere as you can see all the colors all the different elements which right

43:46How to Decorate Team:i mean you really have to have like it is and and i think you know you have to be sort of fearless in order to decorate that way and to have to live with that kind of decorating some people look i mean my my house it's really only that room that is kind of swathed the other rooms aren't right that's a good point and and and the same with that dining room i mean it's more like a moment and especially in a personal space like a bedroom or a dining room where you know you're not spending 24 7 you can live with it right it's easier to digest yeah yeah that's a really great

44:27Katie Rosenfeld:point and in both of your just photography too that green uh dining room you've taken a picture from the outside too and the walls are white and it's very calm and so your eye goes into the space you're like I want to sit in there and have a whole dinner I want to like enjoy it right no

44:44How to Decorate Team:totally destination right yes for sure for sure you know for me having those kind of moments at home are fun to be able to walk into I oftentimes find myself just meandering around my house like a crazy woman just, you know, sitting in rooms, but it just gives, when you really love your surroundings, I think nothing feels better than being at home, right? And having those kind of like sensory moments and having those kinds of experiences where you sit in a room where, you know, you're swathed and all this patterning, there's a certain, it's an experience, right? Yeah.

45:23Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. Well, I also think there's something nice about having a variety of feelings throughout the house because, you know, when you are feeling moody or nostalgic, you can go sit in your room that has more of that. But it's you're not there's like your house has a range of emotions to cater to your own range of emotions.

45:41How to Decorate Team:For sure. For sure. But they all have to sort of coexist peacefully, you know, because you can quickly go off the rails and have each room feel like Epcot, you know, like a different destination. You don't want that either. Right, right, right, right. You have to, somehow you have to figure out how to connect all those dots. And that's the trick. Yeah. Otherwise, you know, you have a house full of disparate sort of experiences that don't feel related in any way. And that's no good either.

46:13Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. That's why we hire you. That's why we gotta call you. Just someone to help guide us. Unless your theme is Epcot. In which case, you just go with it.

46:26How to Decorate Team:Yeah, that's a popular one these days. The AFCOT theme.

46:31Katie Rosenfeld:I no longer can travel. So now I'm just going to make every room a destination. Yeah, right. Okay. So I will. Are you ready to help us? Yes, with a decorating dilemma? I think it's time for a dilemma. Yes. Sure. All right.

46:56Katie Rosenfeld:hey so we have a question from sarah she says hey ballard babes i love your podcast i am a decorating enthusiast and find your show very informative and entertaining at the same time please rescue me from my master bedroom sea of blue and beige it's a large room with vaulted ceilings but very little natural light. I plan to keep the upholstered bed, white armoire, TV nightstands, table, lamps, and art above the bed. I'm leaning towards a masculine, mid-mod organic style for this room, although most of my home is an updated traditional nostalgic. I have started a refresh, but I'm stuck on some key elements.

47:32Katie Rosenfeld:I'm leaning towards dark and moody walls. Thoughts. If I go dark, what should I do about the ceiling? What colors and textures should I incorporate in my bedding? What window treatments do you suggest? What should I do in the corner where I currently have the armoire? Any suggestions for a light fixture that would work in the room? Thanks so much, Sarah. I don't know where you want to start.

47:51How to Decorate Team:What about a dark and moody walls? I love it. I think that would be great. This room has a lot going on in terms of pitch. So it's got a lot of ceiling angles, which can be distracting. So I would actually argue that I might not do a dark and moody color on the wall, I might do the wall and the ceiling and the trim all the same color. So as to detract from all of those pitch issues, I might take the dark and the moody and redistribute it either on the floor or throughout the upholstery or even like curtains and other textiles that the room needs. Because the last thing I want is my eye focusing on all of those different ceiling pitches.

48:39How to Decorate Team:So in my opinion, I would keep the walls super, super creamy and just neutral. And maybe since she's got such good ceiling height, what I might do is use dark and moody, again, redistribute it. This is a great room for art. She's got a, you've got a really nice contemporary piece over the bed. Work with that. Maybe run art all the way up that wall over the windowsill, do a huge, just load it up with all sorts of really cool disparate pieces that you find and take the dark and moody theme and maybe move it to the floor instead of on the walls.

49:19Katie Rosenfeld:So since she's got wall-to-wall carpet, should she just put a big area rug down? Should she change the carpet? What's happening? What do you think there?

49:28How to Decorate Team:Well, that depends. I mean, it all depends on what your appetite and your budget is. I think what I'm seeing is a repeat of solids in this room, right? So there's solid blue, solid beige, solid cream, and solid white everywhere. So the first thing that comes to mind is we've got to inject some patterns somewhere. And that either has to be in textiles or the carpet or both. If she can replace the carpet, I think that would be wonderful. Whether you replace it with another wall-to-wall broad loom that has a pattern. Maybe you do a stripe. Maybe you do a check. Maybe you do something that has a subtle pattern in it to break up all this solid.

50:10How to Decorate Team:And especially if you're going to keep the walls and the ceiling consistent, I would love to see some pattern on the floor. You could also layer a rug over that if you don't want to replace the wall-to-wall carpet. You could easily get a big area rug and layer it right over that.

50:24Katie Rosenfeld:So she asks about window treatments. What about doing something bold on the window treatments? For sure. I think that's the place to do it.

50:33How to Decorate Team:Yeah, that's definitely the place to do it. I think I would do drapery and keep, there isn't a lot of natural light here. So to me, using something dark and moody in terms of a drapery fabric would really warm things up. One could even argue if she wanted to reupholster her bed in that same fabric or in something complimentary that's really dramatic and moody that could be really cool too yeah for sure and and light fixture she's got great ceiling height so be careful with proportion and scale and make sure it's big enough but not too big but you have a lot of license to do a lot of really interesting things with your light fixture because there's a lot of ceiling height to play with there

51:21Katie Rosenfeld:Yeah. She should almost go like really oversized, it seems like, because she's got so much volume up top.

51:28How to Decorate Team:Definitely. And it could be multi-tiered. You know, it doesn't have to be just one level. And I think that that would really also help to make the room feel full if you had several different tiers instead of just one thing hanging from a rod to fill up that visual mass that's up above your eye. Okay. What about, she asks, what should I do in the corner? where I currently have the armoire? Well, I would have to ask her a bunch of questions in order to answer that question, which is, is the armoire important for storage? Because, you know, we always have to think about function, right? And if there's important stuff in there and she needs the armoire, maybe she doesn't have enough closet space or maybe you need it for clothes.

52:12How to Decorate Team:It seems big for the wall and you can't get your drapery stack on the left side if something is that big sitting there, maybe it should just move to a different location and open up that wall for the drapery stack because it does seem kind of crammed in where it is right now. And if there is another place in the room to relocate it, I would choose to do it. Otherwise, I would, you know, maybe even the wall perpendicular to it would be good so that it's not sort of crammed between the window and the corner and then let your drapery stack you know have its full potential around the window what are your thoughts on bedding not necessarily just

53:04Katie Rosenfeld:in this room but in just in your design work in general that's something that i personally struggle

53:10How to Decorate Team:with you like yeah i do i do never off-white always wait even if the room is off-white and Even if there is no white in the room, I just don't like an off-white sheet. I like them to be white. Now, I can play with patterned bedding, but not all patterned, I don't think. I just can't live with it. And nothing's better than white monogrammed bedding. You know, it just always looks fresh. And you can play with patterned sheets underneath. so in this case if she's going to be doing pattern on the windows and you know maybe throughout with other upholstery items maybe you know a really classic white monogrammed lovely duvet with some moody pattern sheets mixed with some other white sheets you know i i love but the basis should be classic and white, I think.

54:06How to Decorate Team:The basis, like the foundation.

54:09Katie Rosenfeld:All right, Sarah, I feel like we kind of hit on all of your... She asked about bedding. She asked about light fixture, window treatments. I feel like we've kind of touched it all. Are you okay? Do you think you can answer the questions? I think she does just cream wall color, but then do the bed and the window treatments. And if it were me i would put like a great chaise in that arm in the corner where the armor is that's in the same pattern as the that could be great and just you know yeah i just don't know what

54:41How to Decorate Team:i'm very cognizant of who's asking the question and what their budget is and you know all of that so i don't want to suggest adding something if that's not tenable you know you're too practical

54:55Katie Rosenfeld:for this question, Katie, is what's happening. But here's the thing. I do think an incredible window treatment in a bold print, that will solve many of the problems she has. Correct.

55:06How to Decorate Team:And the floor is a problem. The big blob of beige on the floor. That's almost the biggest hill to climb. Yeah. In this room, because it's just a sea of solid beige.

55:20Katie Rosenfeld:And maybe you saying that will help her to realize that that's where she starts. And then from there, she can, you know, to your point, budget and pick and choose after, you know, paint the walls white. Then step three is change the furniture. Step four is lighting. So there's always that opportunity. But you gave her a good idea of like next steps for sure. Good. Because I think this is always the problem with dark walls is that ceiling. Because it's like if you do all dark walls and then you've got a white ceiling, it like kind of kills it a little bit.

55:55How to Decorate Team:For sure. And also it doesn't really work in this particular setting because there's no molding.

56:03Katie Rosenfeld:There's no trim.

56:04How to Decorate Team:There's no crown. Yes, there's no easy way to break the.

56:08Katie Rosenfeld:Because I struggled with this in my own bedroom where I did dark walls. I didn't want, you know, my ceilings are low. And so I'm like, well, if the ceiling stays white, it's going to be all you see because it's just your eyes going to go there. So I did a kind of a mid-tone gray, but it doesn't really work as well when you've got this pitch like this. So, yeah. Right. I think she kind of has to rethink that a little bit. Okay. Well, good luck. We would love to see after photos and send us, you know, follow up. And thank you for writing in. Yes. Thank you, Sarah. We're so glad to have you listening.

56:47Katie Rosenfeld:All right, Katie, can you tell everyone where they can find you, follow you, see your work, all of that good stuff?

56:54How to Decorate Team:Sure. You can find me. You can find me on Instagram. Let's see. What is my Instagram handle? I think it's just at Katie Rosenfeld. It's just your name, Katie Rosenfeld.

57:04Katie Rosenfeld:Don't put an I like Caroline tried to.

57:08How to Decorate Team:Yeah, don't put an I in there. Don't put an I or, you know, there are other suffixes that you won't want to put on there. And then my website is katierosenfeldandcompany.com. Brand new website. Just launched it, I think, two weeks ago. It looks great. So brand new website. And I don't do Twitter. I don't do Facebook. And I don't do TikTok. You will never find me on TikTok. So don't look there.

57:40Katie Rosenfeld:but at the same note, you do have a web series of little videos that are super fun.

57:46How to Decorate Team:I do. I do. Those are on YouTube. They're also on my website and on my Instagram. There's several different ways you can get to that. And that series, just so you know, that was not a planned thing. I ended up doing that series during COVID, sort of really off the cuff. It just sort of organically became a thing when I didn't mean it to be a thing. But during COVID, it was really super hard to get content for Instagram or really for any outlet. And I was renovating a house. So we just sort of did it and put it out there, not knowing if anybody would even look at it. Everybody will, especially after they listen to this, because it was well worth it.

58:31Katie Rosenfeld:Everyone loves a reno. Everybody does. You can't name a person who does it.

58:35How to Decorate Team:Everyone loves a before after. So they'll love this. Thank you guys so much for having me on.

58:40Katie Rosenfeld:Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I could just look at your portfolio forever. There's just something. Oh, my God. So thank you. So good. Yes. You definitely need to check out Katie's Instagram and her website and just get some good inspiration. And especially that that green dining room in the bedroom. Oh, they're delicious. Thank you so much, you guys. And that's our show. you can find all of the show notes on our blog, howtodecorate.com slash podcast. To send in a decorating dilemma, email your questions to podcast at BallardDesigns.net so we can help you with your space. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media at Ballard Designs.

59:18Katie Rosenfeld:Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear your feedback. Until next time, happy decorating!