This is very subjective and the title of this post was meant to be a little provocative, but across the board, I find myself drawn to design that has strong but balanced contrast.

The best contemporary eclectic designs find a balance of contrasting opposites, achieving complexity and depth without clutter and busy-ness.  Contrast of color and tone is just another way of telling your eye where to stop and pay attention.  Contrast of pattern, texture and scale adds richness and depth to a room.  It’s like going from looking at a still to a moving picture.  And finally, a contrast of perceived design styles not only adds character to a room but can make a good room great. It’s like going from seeing something on a screen to seeing it in real life.

The most basic way to introduce contrast is through color and the most fundamental way to contrast color is through black and white.  When I say this, I in no way mean simplistic or easy.  Stripping away all the noise and distraction of color leaves you no room to hide in design.

Darryl Carter is a master of this, paring down color so the contrast brings your attention to the detail of a piece of furniture or the line in a painting on the wall or the texture of a floor:

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But color contrasts can also be achieved very well by pairing opposites on the color wheel.  I do this often when choosing coordinating fabric for furniture pieces.   I love throw pillows that are opposite on the color wheel from the piece they sit on but also in a contrasting pattern (stripe on a solid, geometric on a more organic line, etc.).  This is also true for pattern scale.

Another way to achieve contrast is through opposing design styles pairing masculine/feminine, rustic/elegant, vintage/modern, etc.  This pull and tension makes a room feel sometimes inexplicably well-done.  Just think of the enhanced beauty of a delicate antique when paired with a rustic stone wall and a contemporary light fixture.  Or the turned leg of an antique table paired with the sleek lines of a mid-century chair.  Not only does this juxtaposition prevent a room from ever feeling themed or staid, it also adds a level of sophistication and complexity and implies that a room has a story to tell.

Source: bloodandchampagne.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

If in the 1960s you had told someone that interior design in the early 21st century would bring a renewed interest in the arts and crafts movement, they would have said you had been breathing too many fumes from your hovercraft vehicle.  Still, here we are with words like “farmhouse” and “eclectic” ruling the day and most people wanting an antique of some kind somewhere in their design scheme.  Vintage furniture couldn’t be hotter and techniques of previous centuries such as needlepoint and milk paint have found their way into the most contemporary and sophisticated of designs.  But also, “modern” in the classic mid-century context has now become vintage–almost quaint really.  Can it really be that the sleek modern designs that took the world by storm over 60 years ago are now nearly antiques themselves?

We want all white kitchens so we can have a blank slate.  We want contemporary farmhouse style so we can have our laptops on our antique desk.  We want mid-century eclectic so we can remember that previous generations forged ahead after hard times and really did progress and innovate.   We are intrigued by the deconstructed pieces of Restoration Hardware but we haven’t totally given up or become that cynical yet.   We seem to have one foot in the future, and one in the past.

So where do we go from here?  Maybe darker colors will start to replace the bright and light filled rooms of the last five to ten years.  We will create our little caves to wait out the storm.  Maybe even more patina with brass becoming the metal of the day, even reforming old aged brass into sleek contemporary fixtures to complement warm woods.  Perhaps no more Italian, French  or even Scandinavian, but English design influences will become more prevalent with traditional English prints and fabrics to replace soft colors and neutral palettes.  Heavy drapes will replace airy linens and rustic will give way to elegant.

And I could see us retreating from open floor plans–we will start to want rooms.  Private cozy rooms.  Before we tore down walls but we may start to rebuild them.  Maybe pony walls at first or floating walls to just to try it out and then committing with closing off our dining rooms and maybe even building little libraries in the middle of our downtown lofts–just to create a place that doesn’t feel quite so overwhelming.

And when we re-emerge who knows what interesting design influences will rule the day?  What amazing traditions from some as yet not totally familiar culture will have seeped into our consciousness through the glow of our lit computer screens? What hot colors or traditional craftsmanship will be absorbed and incorporated like so much 18th century blue and white Chinese porcelain?  Whatever it is, people really do seek out beauty and there is plenty to find.

What are your predictions for the future of design?  What trends will reflect the cultural changes you see?

I feel like I say this every time I sit down to write a post lately but things have been a little crazy!  Nothing I can’t handle but I do feel a little stretched these days.

You remember from my last post how my front porch was filled with furniture.  Well, I did get the bed painted and I think it’s going to work in our bedroom, I just have to buy a new mattress.  John is traveling for work right now so that purchase will have to wait until he gets back which means I won’t have pictures for you for a a couple of weeks.

The bed looks good-I used ASCP Old White–but now I need to change the whole bedroom!  There were a lot of things I had been meaning to fix up for a while but as usual, had been putting off, but now that we have this new gigantic bed, it’s time to deal.  Here’s a photo from an earlier post of our master:

This photo is about a year or so old–before I knew how to take, style, edit, and light photos.  But it’s a pretty accurate representation of how our room looked a few days ago.  This little four poster was my bed growing up.  It’s a double.  John is 6’2″ and I’m 5’10″.  It was supposed to be temporary but 5 years later we were still sleeping in it.  The new bed is a CA king (which I always thought was just bigger than a king but is slightly narrower and slightly longer) so our room is feeling a lot tighter with the new bed.

The Old White is pretty on the new bed but now the room has too much white in it.  I either need to get darker curtains, paint the walls darker, or repaint the bed darker.  I am truly struggling here with what to do!  Lately I have been loving the look of dark rich walls and could see going in that direction but do I really want to paint that room right now?  Then again, do I really want to repaint a bed I just painted?  New curtains will help but I don’t think it will be enough.  It’s always like this with me–I change one thing and it’s a domino effect.

So to distract my mind from swimming with this new dilemma, here are some pictures of really beautiful bathrooms from my Pinterest board:

Source: carolinaclassact.tumblr.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: sarahklassen.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: tinekestoffels.eu via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: bloodandchampagne.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: keenandfitting.blogspot.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: keenandfitting.blogspot.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

Source: cottages-gardens.com via The Urban Orchard on Pinterest

I hope I helped distract you for a few minutes there–Thanks for stopping by!

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you’ve heard me refer to the fact that our neighbor’s house on the south side is about six feet from ours.  Our eaves practically touch we are so close!  Luckily, we love our neighbors and get along well with them, but they and we would still like to maintain privacy.  When we first moved in four years ago we hurriedly bought three bamboo plants and stuck them in the ground in front of a low point in the fence that divides our two yards:

(Excuse the terrible grainy camera photos).  The house looming over our storage shed there is our neighbors.  See–SO close!  The fence behind John is where we planted the bamboo.  We didn’t research or ask anyone.  We just wanted something that would give us privacy and not take 20 years to grow in…

Well, we have some good friends that have been dealing with a bamboo invasion for the last year or so and it was enough to scare us into taking out the bamboo and putting it in planters today.  I knew bamboo was fast growing but I didn’t realize how invasive it could be.  I have seen shoots of it growing up through the sidewalk of a house near us that has a hedge of it–literally breaking up the concrete.  Apparently it doesn’t grow deep but it grows horizontally very fast and aggressively.  I think we did it just in time as when we (John) dug it up today, there were a few roots snaking out headed under the fence and our house…

While John was busy digging out the plants, I ran to OSH and bought three of the biggest containers I could find.  That wood planter above was plan A but we were worried the bamboo would grow right through it as the wood softened and aged.  The ones we ended up with aren’t all that pretty but I figured I’d deal with that later.  The blue/gray isn’t working for me with all the brown shingles.  And the decorative swag is a bit much too.  But they were only about $35  piece and are ceramic.  I plan to paint them but just didn’t have time before we got the plants in.

The light is so bad here you can’t even see the containers (a good thing)  but you can see how the bamboo already blocks that window and creates a pretty divider between the properties.  This yard is the last big thing we have to tackle in our house and I have big plans for it but replanting the bamboo couldn’t wait!  I hope we will be able to do at least some of the yard in the coming year.  In a city, every spot of usable outdoor space is valuable.

Have any of you had experience with bamboo?  How did it go?