Designer Cynthia Urbanik's Unlikely Inspiration for This Living Room Design
Oftentimes, the design inspiration for Cynthia Urbanik's projects stems from things like a fabric or wallpaper a homeowner loves or a room a client has seen in a magazine. But when she met Sam and Rula Shoman, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based designer knew immediately what would inspire the design of her clients' new home. “Rula's unique and worldly style was refreshing to us, and we loved the opportunity to really explore a style that we don't get to design with too often,” says Urbanik. “It was the perfect inspiration.”.
The couple and their two children had only recently moved into this two-story home in Charlotte's Ballantyne neighborhood, and they, along with Urbanik, knew that the traditional design and décor would never mesh well with the eclectic and colorful aesthetic each had hoped they could incorporate into the home. “They worked with designers in the past but had had a high-end, modern style,” explains Urbanik of the couple's former residence in Central America. “We'd come from a home that had clean, modern lines, but it was dark,” adds Rula. “This time we wanted something light and happy for our kids.”
The Shomans' previous home boasted clean lines and a neutral color palette, so Urbanik wanted to inject some color into the home. Also, because it was new construction, the home lacked some personality. “It's a lot more color than they typically would have had but still in a really soft way,” explains Urbanik of the anthropologie-like color scheme and aesthetic of the home. Soft lavenders and pale pinks and grays complement pops of turquoise and gold accents throughout the home's living quarters and master bedroom.
It's the living room, though, that boasts some of the most colorful and eclectic design elements of the home-a choice Urbanik purposefully made. “The homeowners use this for everyday living,” she says. “We want it to be fun and comfortable yet well designed.” In lieu of all-white walls, Urbanik embraced color and chose a soft blue as the base for the entire room. A tonal quality was created throughout the home and echoed in the living room where a sea grass rug, a sofa, and adjacent chairs in a textured linen provide a textural and colorful feel to the room. The neutral furniture also serves as the perfect blank canvas for the playful doses of color Urbanik planned for the living room. “The average person probably wouldn't say, 'I want to have orange, light blue, green, and pink in my living room,'” laughs Urbanik, “but it somehow totally works.” Those choices of the bold pops of color were directly inspired by Rula's vibrant personality: a bold, pink patterned rug is layered atop the sea grass while custom draperies by Stroheim in turquoises, blues, and greens and a mid-1900s tapestry-like painting from Natural Curiosities provide instant eclecticism to the space. “The colors of the tapestry are perfect and bring the room to life, which is why we selected it – kind of as a wild card for the design; something a little unexpected,” explains Urbanik.
To keep it kid friendly, Urbanik added two sheep-fur ottomans, which are not only functional elements but also offer a touch of playfulness to the space where the family congregates on a regular basis. “It's impossible to walk past [the ottomans] without touching them!' says Urbanik. “They are so much fun and our clients' kids absolutely love them. We initially selected [the ottomans] to bring in an element of texture, and the room truly wouldn't be the same without them.”
Using the homeowner's fun-loving personality as a springboard for the home's design isn't something Urbanik normally does, but, in this case, it proved to be a great move on the designer's part. It took a traditional, new construction home and transformed it into a space that feels not only comfortable and live in but also colorful anf full of character that was otherwise missing. “To me, I think it's the fact that [the home] feels really peaceful,” says Urbanik. “There's a sort of happiness to the way it feels.”
“I absolutely love the end result,” says Rula. “There isn't a day that I walk into my home and [don't] feel happy and refreshed. I love it.” Written by Blake Miller YHL