The Fantastical Nook

A bar! And a wallpaper that evokes a different place — this one is like an exotic jungle, lush and green. We’re in Harlem, but it doesn’t feel like it here!

We wanted it to feel like two distinct areas, the bar and the lounge area, so you want two different papers in two different scales. When they’re of similar scale or motif, your eye doesn’t know where to look.

I thought about that, but then I decided on this custom hanging brass piece that’s more like a curio cabinet and less utility. The brass material also adds another finish. It feels placed there specially and intentionally versus just fitted into the space.

We need pink! The colors of the room are all represented in that wallpaper, but pink doesn’t show up there, but I told my team: We need pink! I was hung up on that. We had a lot of blue and green but something needed to sweeten it and red was too harsh, so we added those Kravet pink cushions.

Here’s two approaches that work: Either choose a hero wallpaper or fabric pattern and draw the other colors in the room from that. Or stick with material choices that share a color family.

The cabinets here are painted Benjamin Moore Harbor Fog. It’s a light blue but a strong enough color for me because I always want bold colors. The rest of the room is painted this same color. We use Benjamin Moore Simply White of course, but also Benjamin Moore Cotton Balls, especially in an old house because it doesn’t look too new. It’s not too dark, but just a little bit yellow. I recommend it to people all the time. I also recently discovered Ghosted by Sherwin-Williams, not really a white, but an off-white canvas color that’s really amazing.

Interview by Sophie Donelson