Eclectic Ideas

The new Millennium has brought about a shift in design toward more contemporary, sophisticated spaces that showcase a free-thinking, eclectic environment.

By Ellen Cheever, CKD, CBD, ASID

There's no question style and design are important, not just for their aesthetic value, but as a business and sales tool in the process of designing a kitchen. While they all strive to create beautiful rooms, successful designers understand they are in the business of design first, and that the artistic pleasure of creating beautiful spaces takes a distant third to the first two goals of profitable projects and pleased clients.

To do this effectively, designers must watch emerging trends, then apply them to their design practice, all while making sure they are "mainstream" enough to sell.

The new Millennium has brought about a shift in design, moving away from romantic rooms that recreate the patina of cherished but well-used antiques and environments from years' past to focusing more on contemporary design ideals. The future of leading-edge design for fashion-conscious consumers will be focused on sophisticated spaces that have the sense of an apartment high above the streets of Milan or a Park Avenue co-op in New York City.

Rather than reproducing the Tuscan countryside, there's a new emerging North American definition of contemporary styling resting on a firm foundation of a warmer, more informal interpretation of modern styling, while showing an appreciation for the freedom of self-expression reflected in eclectic settings.

Design has reached a fork in the road, so to speak: Those historically accurate rooms with European neo-classical designed cabinetry will still be seen against faux finished walls, but may now be mixed with a 1930s or 1940s dining room set from a Parisian salon. Within a new contemporary design, there may be carefully crafted details of the room harkening back to the Shaker villages of New York but these may sit side by side with a Marcel Brewer Barcelona chair.

This trend is becoming more prevalent even in the traditional kitchen, where blending styles without a shared pedigree extends the longevity of the room by incorporating items from various eras and locales, along with the architectural structure. This offers the added benefit of preventing a room from growing "dated" over time.

So, how does one successfully integrate new contemporary design in a kitchen project? Although no one wants to be forced to follow a "paint by numbers" design discipline, designers can still benefit from developing a better understanding of the various nuances of these new contemporary spaces.

To do this effectively, a designer must first understand what "eclectic design" means. As noted Atlanta interior designer Charles Gandy, FASID, IIDA, explains, "Quite simply, eclecticism can be defined as a mixture of more than one style, combining objects from dissimilar sources and aesthetics into a whole."

However, eclecticism does not mean "anything goes with anything." Rather, it means "some things go with other things." So, how does one know which things go with which? While this design style leaves many of the traditional "rules" by the wayside, one thing remains consistent: Eclectic design focuses on combining elements of quality with "quality" defined not so much as rare or expensive, but rather as items that are important within the space and to the client.

Eclectic styling can be divided into four broad categories:

• Combining Old with New
   
• Combining New with Old
   
• Showcasing a Collection: Planned Clutter, The Collector's Mix, or Cross-Cultural Collection