Stefanie Powell, interior designer with The Guest Room Furniture, grew up in her mom’s business, which started when she was 9 years old. “I think the fact that we're a family-run business means that we’ve always fostered family values and go about creating spaces that your whole family can enjoy, not just spaces that look pretty,” she says. When she meets with clients, she likes to know their story – how many kids do they have? How do they entertain? What are their hobbies? “We want to make sure their home is lifestyle friendly so they’re not afraid to live in it.”
Not surprisingly, some of Stefanie’s favorite rooms are those that incorporate heirloom furniture with more contemporary décor. “I think one general trend for our clients is that they mostly have traditional roots but want a splash of modern thrown in to give new life to a classic aesthetic. We love taking a client’s antique or heirloom piece of furniture and having it reupholstered or refinished as the foundation for a room. From there, we layer it with new rugs, custom pillows, window treatments, etc. to create a fresh new look based on a beloved piece.”
That’s the case with our first featured living room which puts an antique sofa at the heart of a vibrant collection of modern, Chinoiserie-upholstered furniture, pillows and artwork. “We introduced more textures and geometrics” to update the room, Stefanie explains. The linen Chinoiserie chairs have a deep navy rather than a more muted cream base to lend a bit more drama.
A sun porch that uses a distressed chest as a coffee table, paired with an oriental rug and some plaid upholstery helps illustrate Stefanie’s second design trend. “We enjoy the juxtaposition of different textures within a room to build layers and add depth to the overall design composition: for instance, a hardy boucle fabric paired with a handsome wool, or natural jute fringe paired with sheer embroidery. Fabrics can play together to create poetry within a space and add visual interest, especially by combining common textures such as linens and cottons with more voluminous elements like velvets and tapestries.”
The living room on the bottom of the next page shows off a third trend. Stefanie describes it as having a base of “soft neutrals with pops of color,” like the teal-gray couch, from which a more muted hue is picked up in the pattern of the chairs. “With the growth and accessibility of performance fabrics, we are able to create a light and tranquil atmosphere that is approachable and easy to maintain. Many upholstery pieces can now be made in a white or linen material but still be pet, kid, and lifestyle friendly! That gives us the opportunity to introduce pops of color in accent pieces throughout the space, while keeping the bones of the room incredibly versatile for years to come.”
While it also displays the use of performance fabrics and a base of neutral tones, our next featured family room evinces “maximalism.” Says Stefanie, “Maximalism is definitely back in. The concept ‘less is more’ is pretty foreign to us, as evident by our lavish showroom!” she quips. Anyone paying a visit to the 312 E Market St. showroom knows what she means. It is an eclectic emporium of delightful accent pieces from tabletop statuary to sumptuous pillows and wall art. One of our favorites is a wall mosaic reproduction of a historic map of Loudoun County. Stefanie delights in drawing on her resource at Iconic Pineapple to produce similar treatments of places that have meaning for her clients.
“Our clients take advantage of the space they’re given and use every inch of the room as an opportunity to express their personal design aesthetic. Wall décor, artwork, tabletop accessories, and even lamps are used to add life and energy to the home. We love to create vignettes that help tell stories of our client’s unique personalities, while also enhancing the overall cohesion of the design.” In the case of the living room with horse motifs, Stefanie calls this “quintessential Western Loudoun.”
Our perfect bathroom also takes advantage of every square inch of space to delight the eyes, from the patterned wallpaper to the pompoms on the window valence. Note that the color of the ceiling echoes that of the valence, and that the scroll accents on the chandelier are reprised on the wall sconces. “I tell people a powder room is the room where you can take risks – do what you would never be brave enough to do elsewhere in the house, because it's kind of its own little wonderland,” Stefanie said.
Last but not least, we selected a photo of a modernized, colonial bedroom, again featuring some upscale Chinoiserie with a blue and white theme. An abstract pillow in blue and white modernizes the theme, and the curtains (yes! printed curtains are back) even convey the color into the garden because they’re double-lined to show the print on the outside. “We love that this younger couple again took a piece of family history (the antique bed) and gave it new life.”
Debbie Mattens, owner of The Guest Room Furniture adds, “I think a lot of people are afraid to hire a designer because they don’t want their house to look like a model home. We are never going to walk into someone's home and tell them, ‘You need to do this differently.’ We work with what they have. A lot of times we'll even convince people to repurpose something – they’ll have a beautiful chair and rather than get rid of it we may recover it. It's not about redoing someone's home, we want to help build their home around them. That's just always been the way we work.”
Visit their showroom or inquire about design services online at www.theguestroomfurniture.com/services.
"It's not about redoing someone's home, we want to help build their home around them. That's just always been the way we work.” Debbie Mattens
