Room of the Day: Geometric Wallpaper Pulls Together Midcentury Style
Slate blues and lots of pattern balance the warm midcentury wood tones in this Austin, Texas, home
“You might make the assumption that somebody who’s an accountant doesn’t have a sense of style, but you’d be wrong,” says designer Jennifer Garner. Her clients, both accountants, got on board with transforming a formal dining room in their 1950s-built home into a casual TV room with bold geometric wallpaper, dragon-print draperies and a rug depicting an underwater coral scene for a look that’s anything but uptight.
Garner next chose drapery fabric (Ming Dragon from Dwell Studio) with similar slate blue tones. To play off the gold in the fabric, she brought in brass accent tables.
A yellow chair also plays on the golden hues, providing additional seating while also hiding a return air grill that Garner had painted in a color she matched to the blue in the wallpaper.
Lamp and black table: Crate and Barrel; yellow chair: Rowe Furniture
A yellow chair also plays on the golden hues, providing additional seating while also hiding a return air grill that Garner had painted in a color she matched to the blue in the wallpaper.
Lamp and black table: Crate and Barrel; yellow chair: Rowe Furniture
The homeowners found the credenza, originally from Global Views, at a consignment store for a third of the original price.
The rug depicts an underwater scene of coral, again with some slate blue to tie everything together. “I’ve always loved that rug pattern,” Garner says. “It was in my mental filing cabinet, and when we laid down the drapery fabric and wallpaper swatches in the showroom, I knew it was perfect.”
She pulled from the silver colors in the rug when choosing the curtain rod and overhead light fixture.
Rug: Wool and Silk Rugs
She pulled from the silver colors in the rug when choosing the curtain rod and overhead light fixture.
Rug: Wool and Silk Rugs
Garner wallpapered the back wall of the TV room so it would be visible from the dining room. “When looking down a hallway, or looking from room to room, I always try to have a color or texture change,” she says.
Pocket doors hidden in the paneled wall allow the homeowners to close the room off to what Garner calls the Triple Threat: a trio of cats that tend to wreak havoc on furnishings. “We struggled with doing our due diligence on finding furnishings that were catproof,” she says.
Light fixture: Arteriors; dining chairs: antique, Jean-Marc Fray
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Pocket doors hidden in the paneled wall allow the homeowners to close the room off to what Garner calls the Triple Threat: a trio of cats that tend to wreak havoc on furnishings. “We struggled with doing our due diligence on finding furnishings that were catproof,” she says.
Light fixture: Arteriors; dining chairs: antique, Jean-Marc Fray
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TV Room at a Glance
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: 144 square feet (13 square meters); 12 by 12 feet
Designer: Jennifer Garner of Refined Interiors
These homeowners tapped designer Jennifer Garner to help turn their former formal dining room into a TV room that would accommodate extended members of the family.
The homeowners already had the brown leather sofa, ottoman and warm wood credenza, so Garner got to work finding cooler colors to provide contrast. She turned her attention to the subtle slate blue found in the veining of the kitchen countertops. Flipping through a book of modern geometric patterns from Schumacher wallpaper, she found one that was slate blue with a silver pattern on top that corresponded with the gray tones in the hair-on-hide ottoman.
Wallpaper: Modern Trellis in Charcoal, Schumacher