A lot of times the rooms that we are challenged to design are not always ideal. Sometimes their greatest feature is the one that is hardest to work with. Take this living room that I designed in Southern California, for example. You walked right into the front door, into this high-ceilinged space with a view out to the garden and the ocean beyond…all great things, right? Not necessarily. There was no sense of entry; once you were in the space you felt like that was it. There was no flow between the two spaces and the ceilings were almost too high and lacked detail—basically, the whole thing was a bit bland overall. So what to do?

(Above) Living room, before.

The first thing I did was create the entry canopy. It was made with slats of wood so it created a defined ceiling but still let you see the room's loftiness beyond. This created the transition that the space needed and the feeling of an entry hall. It became a much more gracious way to enter the home, and set a wonderful Asian mood, too.

To help give the room a bit more texture and intrigue, I grass-clothed the ceiling. You may notice that the grass cloth looks like squares; I did this for a reason. Since it's a natural material and you will get some differences from roll to roll, I decided that I would cut squares as wide as a roll and install it that way, turning a challenge into an advantage. The result is a beautifully detailed ceiling that warms up the space in a way that paint never could.

The fireplace needed some height, so I used leather floor tiles on the wall to create a vertical element. The squares of the tiles picked up the pattern of the ceiling too, helping to unify the whole space. In a similar way the chairs picked up the rhythm of the entry canopy too making a coherent design.

Mark Cutler
Interior Designer,
MarkCutlerDesign.com