Transitional Basement Transitional Basement, Portland

These chairs typify modern plaid to me. There's something a bit mid-century about the pattern, and the shape is contemporary. It's a great pairing of furniture and pattern.

Modern Prep: Vibrant plaid upholstery in the dining room.

Light-colored interlocking rings on chocolate brown cover a wall to create a focal point. The rest of the walls are painted in the same brown to showcase the pattern. Orange chairs and accessories stand out against this backdrop.

Then there's two completely different directions you can go in regards to introducing your love of geometric pattern, starting with the living room. I recommend using a graphic wallpaper or fabric on one wall to create a focal point. NOTE: While I'm not a fan of PAINTING an accent wall, I'm definitely for covering one with pattern — albeit fabric or wallcovering. If you have an open floor plan with a living and dining room combo, it's safe to say you can always rely on pattern to differentiate the two spaces from one another.

1. Rust. Straight from the Paris runway, rust is the color of the moment. Varying tones of an orange-rust can provide energy to a room. Gray and greige adorned many a wall last year, so simply adding a rust-colored accent is an easy way to bring your space into 2011.

2. A new room for entertaining in Portland, Oregon. Designer Garrison Hullinger transformed a finished but blank basement space into a eclectic and colorful place for his clients to relax and entertain. The basement is just under 500 feet, but its flexible floor plan allowed Hullinger to divide up the square footage into different activity areas. Plumbing was added to the new wet bar, which Hullinger designed for easy entertaining. Chic light fixtures were strategically placed around the room, and pops of red and gold were added to offset the otherwise neutral pallette. "I wanted the room to appear to be a sophisticated but casual space, where you didn't have to worry about putting your feet up or spilling a drink on the carpet," says Hullinger.

This open-plan room is proof positive that plaids can mix and match with other patterns. The patterned wall is an ideal backdrop for a quartet of plaid-upholstered dining chairs.

Pattern punch. A game table with oversize contemporary club chairs provides the color and pattern in this scheme. The pattern might be subdued (plaid), but the color choice isn’t (persimmon and orange) in this otherwise neutral room.