Designer Crush: How to Decorate Like Thomas O'Brien

Compose an elegant yet contemporary home with a touch of American casualness, in the style of this renowned designer

A voracious reader of interior design media, I review home decor books.

A voracious reader of interior design media, I review home decor books.... More »

Earlier this year Architectural Digest named Thomas O'Brien's Aero Studios one of its top 100 design firms (AD100) for 2012. If O'Brien's name sounds familiar, chances are you've come across his collection for Target, Thomas O'Brien Vintage Modern. He also recently launched an eponymous line with the international rug company Safavieh.

What makes O'Brien so special? He does the seemingly impossible by making high modernism comfortable and livable. The O'Brien aesthetic is well defined: bright, airy rooms with a clean but lived-in feel. He's known for his excellent eye for antiques that give a room just the right look. His book American Modern opened with this declaration: "Practicality, industry, boldness, scale. Simplicity and sincerity. Innovation. These are the ingredients of American modern style." Bold words from a true tastemaker. Read on to learn how to add the O'Brien touch to your home.

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Mix classics from different time periods. A Han Dynasty horse mingles with a tubular chrome chair, a country neoclassical chair, and a Saarinen side table in O'Brien's Long Island, New York, home. Despite being of different styles and time periods, their shades of brown and tan echo each other. And the neutral color of the walls, ceiling and floors provides a canvas against which their timeless beauty can be admired. "Highlight good structure and authentic details," O'Brien advises.

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The owner of this West Village, New York, loft had a significant collection of French modernist furniture, but O'Brien mixed in other classics to make the space feel like a home rather than a museum. He paired the Jean Prouve dining table, an important piece in the collection, with Eames chairs and a Noguchi lamp, American classics from the same time period. The mix of textures and materials — wood, fiberglass, paper — gives this room life.

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Use antiques to soften modern lines. Achieve the O'Brien look with a pale palette. Paint walls, trim and ceiling white or cream. For flooring, use light-colored marble, wood like pine or bamboo, or wood painted white or cream. This is a classic modernist trick to amplify the size or light in a room. To counteract the white-box effect, decorate with well-worn and well-loved pieces. Here, O'Brien chose an antique Swedish settee to soften the starkness of the formal hallway.

Tip: O'Brien is a master at layering elegant, muted colors. When decorating with white, employ various shades to create depth. For example, use a slightly creamier color for trim than what's on the walls to create visual interest. The same applies to furniture.

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Magnify scale. The living room of O'Brien's Manhattan apartment has 20-foot ceilings but a small footprint. He humanized this potentially cold space by creating symmetry. Taking his cue from the room's double windows, he populated the room with pairs of furniture. Matched pieces allowed him to introduce fewer overall shapes, which enhanced the scale of the room.

Tip: In small spaces, be rigorous about selecting furniture. For each decision, O'Brien suggests you ask: "Why this piece, why this place?"

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When using dark colors, go for high gloss. When O'Brien uses dark colors, he goes for maximum impact. To add a muscular touch to his neutral palette, he sometimes injects dashes of black, particularly a shiny black. He often does this with doors and stair banisters, and when decorating with midcentury-modern furniture, as seen here.

TIp: Stand tradition on its head. When laying tile or brick, place the pieces on end for an ultracontemporary look.

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After black, blue is O'Brien's next accent color of choice. In the bathroom of his apartment, O'Brien clad the walls with a high-shine ceramic tile in midnight blue. He didn't stop there; the medicine cabinet is mirrored inside and out and takes up an entire wall. In effect, the small space becomes doubly intimate.

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Don't sacrifice comfort. In designing private rooms, O'Brien reminds us to surround ourselves with the things we love. Here, in his Long Island home studio, O'Brien's spare aesthetic is present, but a worn desk, mementos from his childhood and work tools are there too.

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Casualness, says O'Brien, a former Ralph Lauren Home designer, "is an American idea, and it is the human dimension that I bring to even my most formal interiors — allowing people to relax in their space with comfort."