Interior Design Ideas: Bold Furniture that Doubles as Art in Open Floor Plans

Open plans are pretty popular these days. As interior designers, we love rooms of all shapes and sizes. But there is something to be said for large, open spaces because they allow families and friends to gather for meals, parties, or watching the game. But with fewer walls dividing rooms, the wall space that is available may be at a premium. If the little remaining wall space is used for a storage piece…boom! You’re out of room for art.

So what’s the solution? Try furniture that doubles as art.

I recently was on a trip to San Miguel de Allende, a town in Mexico with a thriving art community. I visited the Fabrica La Aurora Art and Design Center, which used to be a textile factory, and is now a community of galleries featuring paintings and handicrafts by artists who live in San Miguel.

So many of the galleries featured beautiful objects, but as an interior designer, I was most inspired by the Lucas Rise gallery. Here, among the textiles and handbags and lampshades, were giant, vibrantly painted armoires in super bold and colorful patterns.

While many of my favorite pieces were armoires, I did also find this stunning dresser, which would be great for a room where you might not have a full height wall but still want a punch of color along a low wall.

Another interesting thing about the Rise Gallery is that it is a collaboration between fiancées Lucas Rise and Giuliana Vastarella (we met Giuliana, who was lovely and who sells her embroidery pieces at the store as well). Sometimes our interior design clients are couples who are merging art or furniture from their previous lives. These items might belong to different worlds, aesthetically speaking, and sometimes our clients have concerns about how the items might be able to co-exist. Lucas and Giuliana can serve as role models in the way that they created a space that allowed their work to harmoniously coexist. Set off by a background of white-washed stone, the wild riot of colors on display at Rise all seemed to be happily coexisting, whether it was a boldly painted furniture piece or the layered motifs of the embroidered works.

Are you looking to work with a designer to help you and your partner’s style mesh? We’ve helped many couples work through this challenging exercise with great success. Simply complete our Client Contact Form and we’ll get back to you.