Men and women often have very different ideas when it comes to decorating. He might like heavier furniture and darker colors, while she may want more feminine pieces and lighter colors. So, how can couples find a nice balance and be happy with the end result?
“Compromise is huge, and it doesn't have to be limiting,” says Patricia Robbins, the store manager and lead designer at OP Jenkins Furniture & Design in Franklin. “It’s taking everything step by step, and this is really where designers can help a lot because they can be the middleman.”
Patricia has been with OP in Franklin since it opened in 2016, and before that worked at a high-end design boutique. (The original family-owned-and-operated OP Jenkins store in Knoxville has been in business since 1907.)
“Men typically tend to focus more on the big picture,” she says. “So, if he wants that big comfortable chair, she can then have her beautiful sofa and some of those other little feminine details.”
When Patricia is designing a space that needs to incorporate masculine and feminine tastes, she focuses on textures, wood tones, and metals. “If I'm going to do a feminine fabric on a pillow for the sofa, I then want to make sure that's balanced out with a darker wood tone on a coffee table and maybe some heavy metal on side tables so it's inviting for both the husband and wife.”
She recently helped a previous client who was downsizing from a large home in Franklin to a downtown Nashville condo. For this, Patricia had to blend her client’s traditional preferences with her client’s husband’s need for masculine touches and do it all in a very contemporary space.
The main rooms, which consisted of a living room, lounge, dining room, and kitchen, were all in one big open space, so a nice flow had to be considered.
Instead of jumping right into an extremely contemporary style, Patricia knew she needed to ease her client into it. “In the living room, a modern petrified stone coffee table gives a lot of really nice texture, and it's got creams and golds, which are the tones that my client is drawn to. We've got a little bit of leather in there too and some traditional Schumacher fabric prints that just give that nod back to a traditional style,” she says.
The lounge space was a really cool spot. “We put in a very traditional settee in a modern bright colored velvet, and then we had a traditional Asian toile print lumbar pillow across the front. We also added an abstract piece of art and light fixture.”
For the dining room, the client wanted to keep her rustic yet refined dark wood table, so Patricia paired it with modern dining chairs to fit the condo vibe.
The kitchen was lit with amazing modern pendant lights, and seating included traditional-style counter stools with really sharp black and white fabric. Everything in this space also worked great, with the dining table right behind it.
Fortunately for clients, OP Jenkins Furniture has a vast catalog of manufacturers that carry everything from French antiques to the most modern pieces. “There are no limits to what we can do,” says Patricia. “We have access to very high-end furniture, but we can also work with medium-to-lower-end budgets. The end goal is to create homes that make clients happy.”
OPJenkinsFurniture.com