Use existing elements to create a new room

We’ve all been there at one point or another – the proverbial rut.

When it comes to design, clients never want to get stuck looking at the same room designed the same way. Sometimes clients just need to look at the room in a different way.

A professional designer or home stager works with existing decor/ furniture to reconfigure it into an entirely new and refreshing layout.

Many people think staging a home is something that is only for when selling a home, but call in a professional if you are simply wanting a “new look” or if you’ve moved into a new place and are vexed as to how it should be arranged.

In the case with one of my clients, Pam Backofen-High and her husband, Jay, they had merged their items into a gorgeous house in the Haven subdivision in Shreveport.

The couple had beautiful things but they were not showcased and arranged properly.

A huge double height living room was crammed into one end of the room leaving a void on the other. The shelves were all packed to the rim with accessories but, the items lost their focus due to the shear amount of them.

An adjacent den – the heart of their home – was disconnected with a hodgepodge of furnishings and had no flow or connection with the living area.

I was given free reign to turn their dream house into a home. This meant I could pull items, furnishings, art from anywhere in the house to unify the rooms. Also, the couple allowed me to edit items in order to better showcase.

Beginning with the living room, I started by widening the seating area, bringing in a larger rug and repurposing two elephant accent tables, which flanked the fireplace, into a new coffee table. We cleared the shelves, then replaced, by grouping like items and only having two to three items per shelf.

We bought two new trees to flank the sofa, which helps to frame the beautiful view and softens the hardness of the windows. A really cool spun bamboo lamp with silvers/golds was also purchased to add just a touch of glam to otherwise traditional items. That’s all we bought everything else they already owned.

A sectional and coffee table from the upstairs bonus room, a lamp from a guest bedroom and a console from the kitchen were all merged to create a cozy den that the couple and their grandchildren can all curl up on and watch a movie.

Two days later and the house became a home. My clients loved it, and we’ve become good friends (which happens a lot).

–Myron Griffing