Papercity

They can punch up a room with a dash of paint and play fearlessly with scale and proportion. The best of designers can rearrange a room in a snap and breathe new life into a tired-looking boudoir. While we rely on their knowing eye to pull fabrics, measure curtains and estimate what it will take to recover Grandmother’s Knole sofa, some of our favorite decorators really excel at wonderfully quirky, inventive touches that give a space character and charisma. We asked a few of this city’s best design minds to share a few trucs of their trade.

Lisa Pope-Westerman
Design director, hospitality and retail studios, Gensler
Run flooring material (carpet, tile, cork, anything you choose) up a wall. I just did that at restaurant Stella Sola. It blurs the planes and guides your eye to a focal point.

Wallpaper your closet! I’ve done it all over my house. It’s a noncommittal easy change I never tire of doing.

Mix and match expensive pieces with inexpensive items everywhere, just like you do with your clothes. For instance, I paired pricey tile from Waterworks in my children’s bathroom with utilitarian Daltile.

Suspend and backlight something from the ceiling instead of hanging a chandelier.

Take a favorite image, mirror it again and again, and then have it printed onto [fire-rated] fabric. You can then wrap the fabric onto a wire frame and make a custom pendant.

Use your own snapshots to make wallpaper. I did this with Mexican toys recently. Places like A&E can print it up for you. 
Aaron Laine
Bath designer and owner, Fixtures & Fittings
I like to use doorknobs mounted on a wall or the middle of the back of a door to hang a robe. Doorknockers can double as clever towel rings, too. Either can add a bit of architectural interest, and you can find a broad selection of styles and finishes, from the simplest to the most ornate. It’s also a great way to multipurpose one-of-a-kind antique hardware.

Shower baskets. Love them. Put them everywhere! It isn’t a huge commitment, and you can mount them after the tile is installed and instantly customize your shower. Mount two, for yours and theirs.

Doing a bathroom on a budget but you’ve fallen for a tile that’s way over your budget? Use enough of the good stuff to cover a square foot or one-and-a-half feet for the back-of-the-shower niche (you know, that space where you stash your shampoo and conditioner), then surround it with less expensive tile. You’ll see it every time you reach for the Kérastase. It really stands out as an accent.
Kathy Frietsch
General manager and buyer, Thompson + Hanson
Don’t be afraid to repurpose anything! Look for texture and form. At Tiny Boxwood’s, we repurposed old wooden shutters, disassembling them to use as facing for the bar. We even used the same wood to frame the chalkboards. You could never recreate that texture and patina on new wood, and it’s the perfect contrast to the slick marble top, stainless steel and subway tile of the bar. I repurposed some large old wicker laundry baskets into consoles, too, replacing the wheels with ball feet and cutting marble tops to fit. I could have sold them a million times over. You could use old wood doors or shutters to make a box base and customize your own consoles, too. They would make perfect bedside tables.

Bring in the outdoors with garden stools, stone tables and benches. The long community table at Tiny Boxwood’s is a florist’s table. We had the old worn zinc top smoothed and the legs cut to dining-table height. The texture and weight of items like this provide a warm counterpoint to a modern interior. Look for pieces in stone and metal. Old grates can make the perfect cocktail table with a metal frame cut to size and a piece of glass to top it. Just one piece could give you the patina to pull together a room filled with lots of upholstery.

Paint it. Don’t be afraid to lay a few coats of white lacquer over that old pedestal table, chair or cabinet. If you’ve found (or inherited) the perfect size dining table for your light and airy kitchen, but you loathe its brown stain … paint it white! There is lots of furniture at little local antique shops that’s too dark but has great detail or size, and it’s usually inexpensive. Just paint it.

Re-cover furniture with blankets, throws or even a tablecloth. Each provides great texture and pattern at a great price. I used some quilted canvas twin bedspreads in chocolate to recover a pair of modern chrome chairs. The texture and casual feel are the perfect counterpoint to its slick appeal. And it was half the price of most high-end fabrics.
Chandos Dodson
Principal designer, Chandos Interiors
I always incorporate some Deco pieces into my modern and contemporary house projects. They tend to tone down a room when it feels too stark. The patina of those pieces can add depth to a room.

I like to play with doors, painting them with a high-lacquer finish. It can warm up a modern look or add interest to a contemporary setting. It gives a room a subtle change, too, without blowing the budget.Try using texture such as mother-of-pearl wallpaper, a high-gloss lacquer paint or grasscloth to warm a cool contemporary interior. Texture is one of the most important elements of good design.

When designing a bathroom, tiling it floor to ceiling isn’t only functional but can make the room feel larger. I prefer to use the same material on the floor and walls but change the pattern or direction in which it’s laid.
Aaron Rambo
Co-owner, Found for the Home
Make something out of nothing. Even the most mundane object can take on visual importance when you set it upon a custom acrylic base. In my house, I placed a vintage architectural fragment on an IKEA tabletop (sans its legs).

Anything can be artful. I’ve framed vintage lawn sprinklers and even old numbers from gas-station pumps.

Never underestimate the power of fresh flowers and plants. Either immediately gives a flat room life. 

One of my favorite trucs: using painter’s drop cloths (new, of course) to upholster a piece or line and use as curtains. I recently did the latter at both the shop and my home.

Pairs of floor lamps add instant architectural interest, as well as vertically break long expansive walls. 
P. Joe Shaffer
Interior designer, P. Joe Shaffer Design
One of the oldest tricks in the business, and one of the simplest, most elegant and least expensive ways to visually clean up a room (or a whole house): Simplify the selection of lampshades. Frankly, I’d prefer to simplify the lamp bases too, but that’s a big wallop if you’re working on a tight budget. Change out most of the shades to one style, while limiting the color and texture of those shades. If you change all the froufrou shades to the most elemental empire or drum shape, say, in off-white paper, natural linen or pongee (a soft, thinly woven silk), then the feel of the house just relaxes a bit and the eye can focus on the real collectibles, not the lamps, which should disappear into the room’s framework. This allows you to note the lampshade once, and then the rest of the shades just repeat the basic rhythm you’ve established.

Beware, the lampshade salesperson will try to up sell you the froufrou shades, but stick to your guns. When in doubt, go for simple, small shade. As for the choice between paper, linen or pongee, choose only one or two textures at most for consistency. Keep it simple. If it feels like a trend or remotely reads as ‘cute,’ you must run like hell from it.
Lisa Epley McCord
Interior decorator
This trick was born out of necessity. I longed for a pair of mirrored chests to use beside my daughter’s bed, but I didn’t want to break the bank. I bought two Malm three-drawer chests from IKEA ($80 each) then took them to Bobbitt Glass on West Gray. They mirrored every surface and even added some of their fabulous (and inexpensive) stick-on acrylic drawer pulls. (I like the square ones best.) The total cost was way less than any ready-made mirrored chest I could find, and the look is lean, clean and dazzling.

Looking for a great way to cover a large wall? Call Honey’s Home + Style in Waco (254.754.3311) and ask them to send you one of their Plan de Paris map sets ($70 each, composed of 25 pieces). It’s new, so you need to “age” it. Buy some Mod Podge and a small bottle of DecoArt Americana acrylic paint in Bittersweet Chocolate at Michael’s. Pour a quarter of the Mod Podge in a small bowl and add a teaspoon of paint, stir and then spread it with a sea sponge thinly across each piece, dabbing it on heavier in places so it doesn’t look too perfect. When dry, frame with inexpensive 16 X 20 black lacquer frames (also from Michael’s). Hang edge-to-edge across the wall. The result is an impressive display measuring roughly 108 x 88 inches.

An inexpensive solution for pulling together disparate upholstered furniture: Slipcover it all in white denim. I buy mine at Interior Fabrics on Fondren for $7 a yard. Have it cut into five-yard pieces, and before it’s sewn, take it to Stanley Cleaners on West Alabama to have it laundered and pressed — a must so it’s preshrunk. Durable and not easily wrinkled when you have them made into slipcovers, they’ll wear for years and can be easily bleached in your washing machine, too. It’s a great trick to hip up a staid piece of furniture and make a whole room look more cohesive.
Sylvia Dorsey
Owner, Longoria Collection
Most of the bedding lines we carry have coordinating fabric available by the yard. I order it to use for draperies because the width of the fabric is generally wider (120 inches versus the standard 56 inches), which means you have fewer seams and the fabric works out to be about half the price. But when it comes to saving money on bedskirts, actually, pre-made skirts are a lot more economical to use than costly custom ones.

There’s nothing more important than great lighting. It can create a mood that’s flattering and inviting. I use lots of candles. They impart a soft glow, and there’s nothing more beautiful than a table filled with candles. Personally, I prefer to put candles in hurricanes — not only for safety, but because the reflection on the glass magnifies their beauty.