Leta Austin Foster’s 10 Tips for Timeless Interiors
Named among the 20th Century’s most influential interior designers by House Beautiful magazine, Leta Austin Foster established her design business in Palm Beach in 1975, which she expanded in the 1990s to include offices in Los Angeles and New York. Foster believes that decorating should be fun, whimsical, not taken too seriously, and that any room can be beautiful and comfortable at the same time. Foster also believes in creating interiors that will stand the test of time.
“And that brings me to my philosophy,” Foster stated on her fabulous blog, Decorating With Sheets. Houses are NOT fashion. They are not done with tricks. No matter how many cunning articles (“101 ways to Use Aqua in Your House” “Fun Tricks with Aqua as shown by a Master”), a house should be decorated to last a l-o-o-o-ng time. Decoration, especially good decoration, is just too expensive to try and be fashionable.”
I could not agree more! Foster is one of my all-time favorite designers, and today I am delighted that she is sharing with The Glam Pad her 10 tips for creating timeless interiors…
10 Tips for Creating Timeless Interiors
by Leta Austin Foster
1. I love and use wallpaper, and wallpaper is your biggest bang for the buck – and I don’t mean those plain slubbed silk or linen – those are wallcoverings, and as much as I may love and even use them at times, you still have to have pictures, architectural, and decorative elements. I mean wallpaper with lovely designs and colours. We used a beautiful Chinese flowered paper for a bedroom overlooking the sea on Jupiter Island and then literally left the walls blank. The view of the ocean and the wallpaper design was enough. It also allowed me to use a much less expensive fabric for the curtains.
2. Billy Baldwin used to stress that you should have a 60/40 rule for how furniture is finished off. What he meant was that 60% of the furniture in a room should have skirts and 40% show their legs. This new trend of having everything with legs leaves a room a little cold and does not add to the feeling of comfort. Get some skirts – and be very, very careful in their details. I interline my skirts if my fabric is not thick enough (i.e. chintz and thin silks).
3. Have books. You don’t have to be traditional to want to have books, but books add charm and add interest to a room. I have always used them – and I don’t mean fabulous incunabula or matched bound leather sets. I mean walls of books and books in heaps; I mean books people read and also books which they cherish for their illustrations (I have collected for almost 40 years books with Arthur Rackam illustrations which I look several times a month, as they intrigue me). And don’t artfully stack up the coffee table books on low table. Stacks that are too perfect discourage anyone from anyone ever picking one up and looking through it.
4. Use classical shapes in your furniture. There’s a reason people keep coming back to these beloved shapes. Not only are they immensely comfortable (if made well), but they are pleasing to the eye. Look around at your local craftsmen – there are so many good ones. You need to give them small things to do at first, learn how accomplished they can be, and then use them. Why would you order furniture from a catalogue – no matter how beautiful that catalogue may be – and then have to settle for furniture made half a world away with staples and glues which may well be poisonous. Buy local.
5. Forget the colour of the year! What an advertising gimmick that is, beloved by paint companies who would love for you to feel you needed to repaint all the time. But you want to decorate for the ages, not just today. Choose colours which you love and can live with. They needn’t match your fabrics – in fact, I almost never match fabrics to the paints, but of course, you would like them to look good together. And don’t tell your friends the colours you have chosen. Usually what is your favorite is not their favorite.
6. Have a pleasing melange of prints and weaves, not forgetting the rugs. This way you will live with these choices for a long, long time. Animal prints work very well with chintzes, and they have been around forever.
7. Put moldings up on plain bare walls to create the look of panelling. Then they can either be painted as the walls or be filled in with wallpaper or fabric or be, as the English say, “pointed” which merely means having little lines of a contrasting colour.
8. Forget your fear of brown furniture. Most antiques are brown furniture and the brown looks wonderful when it is contrasted with painted furniture. and chintz. and wallpaper. and beautiful curtains and rugs and so on and so on and so on. Look at Winterthur or the Metropolitan Museum and see how masterfully print fabrics and beautiful rugs, and painted furniture look with brown furniture. Get over it! And make friends with antique dealers. They can be such a learning experience for you, and if they are good ones, they will let you know when they get in something that would be right for you and in your budget. But do your homework too – learn about things so that when a dealer says “Hester Bateman” or “Thomas Seymour” or “Ebonite” to you, you know what in the world they are talking about.
9. Take time with your details – Don’t go cheezy with curtain trims, go for real silk rather than rayon or cotton or linen or even wool. Tapes along the bottom of skirts, lovely gimps delineating the inset fabrics of chairs and settees, contrasting welting on chair covers and upholstery, smocking on curtain tops and dressing table skirts, wonderful wastepaper baskets, thermoses by the bedside with a little tray and a glass, beautiful bedlinen – these are just some of the details that make a traditional house special.
10. Lamps and lampshades. Don’t just be generic here – You might love the single or double gourd for its organic purity, but there are tole lamps and wooden lamps, and pottery lamps and lamps made from figurines. There are lamps of decalcomania and bouillotte lamps of painted tole, big lamps and small lamps, and most of them need shades. Get a good lamp store with whom you can work so that your shades will fit your lamps perfectly. Sometimes you can buy what you need right off the floor, but sometimes you will have to make your shades, so you want your lamp store man to help you with your measurements. I love to work with a man here named Alan, and he makes sure that my lamps are wired properly for safety and fitted with the proper harps. Them we measure the lamp together, and I order my shade from one of my many different shades makers – sometimes paper, sometimes silk, sometimes pleated down the sides or ruched at the bottom, sometimes with tiny inset contrasting fabrics around the base between the bottom band and the field, sometimes smocked. Casual, very dressy, plain, or grand, lamps are one of the most important things in the room. And their light is so important too. I was once privileged to work on a beautiful large modern house with the absolute king of lighting design, and I asked him what was the best form of lighting in a room. Do you know what he told me? “A lamp with a shade.” So there.
Thank you so much Leta for these wonderful tips! As a side note, I was intrigued to learn that Foster interned with Colefax & Fowler in London in the fall of 1982. You may recall from Friday’s interview with Mario Buatta the instrumental role John Fowler played in his career. “I love Imogen Taylor [a partner with Colefax & Fowler] who still has a wonderful influence in my mind when I come to needing a decision. ‘What would Ms. Taylor do?'” Foster said. So many of my favorite designers are connected to this firm! More on Foster’s English influence can be read here.
When I think about interior design, I find myself constantly asking “What would Leta do?” She has truly created some of the most beautiful rooms I have ever seen. For more inspiration from Foster, I highly recommend her book Traditional Interiors (mine is tattered and torn from use!) in which she describes in detail the key elements for creating your own traditional, timeless rooms. The book is divided into four main subjects that illustrate and explain the often complex design process – Curtains, Walls, Upholstery and Trim, and The Details. I reviewed her book here. You can tour a classic Florida home she designed here, an ocean front home here, and a historic Virginia home here. For daily inspiration, please follow @letaaustinfoster on Instagram, and when in Palm Beach you must visit the Leta Austin Foster shop in Palm Beach, which she opened to satisfy her meticulous search for the ideal accessories such as linens, tableware, silver, and furniture.
Four Mundane Current Design Trends …and How to Get Them Right, by Holly Holden
When I think of classic design, I immediately think of Holly Holden. In 2013, Holly published The Pretty and Proper Living Room in which she shares “old-school secrets for timeless elegance and… the no-no’s to know.” Her book changed my entire perspective on interior design, re-routing me back to the traditional style I have always loved but had somehow forgotten. I became more and more aware of the fleeting nature of trends, realizing that with traditional design, you only have to decorate once…. it never goes out of style! Her book became my design bible, and Holly has since become a treasured friend.
January is “anti-trend” month at The Glam Pad, and I am thrilled to have Holly kick off the series. In her book, Holly reveals the recipe for creating a graceful, genteel living room (and home) with timeless understatement. Today she is dishing on four mundane current design trends… and how to get them right. Welcome Holly!
Four Mundane Current Design Trends …and How to Get Them Right
by Holly Holden
photos by Dean Greenblatt
Trends by their very definition come and go. So, to make your design dollars stretch further, classic design is the smart choice. And… as an added bonus, it’s prettier too!
Classic design, like good manners, never goes out of style. Classic design is timeless, which means you only have to decorate once, sparing yourself the extra cost and frustration. But what is classic design? To me classic design is like a good hostess: elegant, graceful and above all, excellent at making her guests feel comfortable. Classic does not mean all antiques, nor does it mean everything matches. Classic simply means that you have invested in pieces that will not go out of style, and you have arranged them tastefully. So here are four examples of timeless design advice that my mother taught me and I have taught my children.
1. Walls: Hello Yellow
There was a time in the mid-1970’s when avocado green and harvest yellow were the trendy colors of choice for appliances and cookware. People looking at those colors today describe them as “retro” and “kitsch” but few people want those colors in their homes. Today we are in the midst of monochromatic madness as white, black, gray, and beige are the trendy colors. Designers have even come up with the portmanteau “graige” (from gray and beige) to describe today’s sad state of affairs. Mark my words: a few decades from now the designers of the future will be steering clients away from the cliched color pallets of 2017.
Allow me to introduce you to the anti-graige. The one, the only: Yellow! I like to say, “When in doubt, just use yellow!” Yellow always creates a warm and sunny atmosphere. Yellow makes wood pieces, particularly mahogany, really pop. Use paler lighter hues for larger rooms, and bolder punchier shades for smaller spaces. Buttery yellow is my favorite timeless color for paint.
2. Furniture: The Power of Pillows
The current trend towards sofas and chairs with no throw pillows is definitely a classic design no-no. Throw pillows are not just for decoration. They make furniture more comfortable and invite guests to have a seat. The power of pillows should not be underestimated! A comfortable guest is a happy guest.
If you don’t already have a needlepoint pillow, you should start your search for one today. The right needlepoint pillow is like a dash of sofa spice adding wit and whimsy.
3. Accessories: Serve from Silver
The trend now is towards square, white plates and platters. Try to avoid the siren song of square serving pieces. Steer your ship instead towards silver. My mother always said everything tastes better when served from silver and I agree. My experience has taught me that hors d’oeuvres served from silver platters are twice as likely to be plucked by peckish party-goers.
4. Lighting: Revere The Chandelier
Dome lights are everywhere these days but, when it comes to classic design, chandeliers are the light and the truth. No light fixture is more classic and timeless than a chandelier. It goes without saying that you need a chandelier over a dining room table. But don’t forget: chandeliers come in all sizes and petite ones will fit in any room. It is a myth that you need high ceilings for chandeliers. Halls, living rooms, kitchens and even powder rooms are all excellent locations for a chandelier. I even have one in my closet!
I hope I have given you a small taste of what classic design is and how it can benefit your interiors. Remember to think long term. Trends come and go but there are themes in design that have been prevalent for centuries. Sticking to these themes will keep your rooms relevant for decades to come. For more design advice and also the faux pas to avoid, consider my book, The Pretty and Proper Living Room, and my Classic Design Channel on YouTube.
Thank you dear Holly for sharing your wisdom with us today! I could not agree more with these tips. For more on Holly Holden, you can read my past blog posts here and here. I reviewed her book, The Pretty and Proper Living Room, here. You can follow her on Instagram for daily inspiration, and you won’t want to miss her Classic Design Channel.
Please stay tuned to The Glam Pad this month for more “anti-trend” classic design! On Friday, I am honored to share my interview with design legend Mario Buatta whose consistently elegant interiors have set the gold standard for the industry for more than 50 years. And guess what? Mario also loves the color yellow!
Christmas with Victoria
Ever since I was 12 years old, I have been in love with Victoria magazine. Each and every beautiful issue was savored and read over and over again during those pre-Internet days. At one point, I had collected every single issue going back to 1987, the year of the magazine’s inception. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of most of them during our last move, but I was able to find The Complete Collection from 1987-2012 on disk via Amazon which I cherish and highly recommend! The timelessness of this magazine is remarkable. I was skimming through issues from 1992 the other day, and virtually each and every image appeared as if it could be from today. Such is the beauty of classic, elegant design. Naturally, @victoriamagazine is one of my very favorite follows on Instagram, and I have collected some of their most beautiful Christmas inspiration to share today. All images are via @victoriamagazine.
To subscribe to Victoria magazine, please click here. The Complete Collection from 1987-2012 is available via Amazon, and for daily inspiration, you will want to follow @victoriamagazine via Instagram. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
An Old Fashioned Southern Christmas
Instagram is such a wonderful resource for meeting new people who share similar interests, and today I am delighted to introduce you to Judy Rizzo, aka @mousefeathers. Judy lives in a historic 19th century home in New Iberia, Louisiana that is classically decorated and full of fine antiques and treasures. Judy particularly enjoys the Christmas season, and today we will tour her beautiful home decorated for the holidays and beyond. This is a home that stands the test of time and is a reflection of the Rizzo family’s lives, collected over decades of memories. Let’s take a look inside and meet Judy!
Q: Please tell me about your home (what year was it built, etc.) and your design process.
A: My home was built in 1890 in New Iberia, Louisiana on what was to become the Old Spanish Trail (in 1929), the first southernmost transcontinental highway. It is located on Main Street and built in the style known as Victorian Center Hall Cottage. It is a raised cottage spanned by a deep front porch. The East Main Street Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
During the design process of this house, I was able to take cues from the house itself. Usually the scale of the rooms, window placements, formality of the millwork and mantel of a particular room will dictate how it is to be decorated, and the fact that all of the rooms in the house are very much used. The house has a great flow to it and a “time-worn” feel to its rooms. My husband Monty and I bought this home in the fall of 1978.
Q: How would you describe your design aesthetic, and what was the design inspiration behind your décor?
A: My main thought on decorating is that a home should be a reflection of its inhabitants’ lives. I feel I’ve always been, even as a young girl, drawn to design books that have shown this philosophy, even long before I majored in art and interior design in college. A room should offer many “clues” as to who “truly lives” in it. Just as a husband and wife meld their lives together, so should the home become a collage of objects and collections of objects that have made up their lives.
I have been told that our home is living proof that art, chintz, and my collection of lots of “living” animals can co-exist just fine with Monty’s antique medical engravings, floor to ceiling bookcases in very room (even the bathroom!) and his collection of “once living” African taxidermy. I guess you could say that we are each collectors and hunters by nature, and through the 40 years that we have lived in this house, we have both learned a lot about ourselves. Our home and its walls certainly do express both our loves and our lives.
Q: When did you become interested in interior design, and where do you find inspiration? Do you have any professional design experience?
A: I studied art and interior design in college but never worked in either. While my three daughters were in college, I did have an antique business in the city in which they attended school. It was a fun thing to do with my time while getting to see my girls and my friends from college days.
A lot of my spare time now is spent helping friends and family design and decorate their homes. I have helped three generations of friends – my mom’s, my own, and now many of my children’s friends.
Q: What are your favorite interior design books?
A: My favorite design books are Charlotte Moss: A Passion for Detail, Charlotte Moss Decorates, Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration, and Suzanne Kasler: Inspired Interiors.
Q: Are there any treasures you particularly enjoy collecting?
A: One of my passions has been collecting Victorian Staffordshire Figures from the early to mid 1800s. My collection is quite extensive and is displayed in several rooms around the house.
Q: How do you like to decorate for Christmas?
A: Decorating for Christmas has always been a fun time at the Rizzo House. The architecture and layout of the house just lends itself to traditional, old time fun decorations – classic Christmas colors, magnolia leaves from the yard, old world ornaments passed down from my mom and from trips through the years, Christmas crackers, gingerbread houses, and always a heavily lighted and decorated Christmas tree that brushes the 14 foot ceiling. Our three girls have always played a very big part in the decorating and helping with the Main Street Christmas Tours, and it is my hope that the grandkids may one day also do the same.
Q: What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
A: What I really enjoy doing during my free time is painting. In fact, my New Year’s resolution is to spend more time at my easel painting portraits, still lifes, and interiors.
Since my husband retired one year ago, it’s been fun to be able to take off at any time for a quick trip to see our grandchildren or to go to our house in New Orleans for longer than just a weekend!
Q: Anything else you would like to add?
A: For the past 12 years, our Christmas celebration has also been a birthday celebration for our beloved pair of Scottish Terriers named Oliver and Tilly, who were born on Christmas day in 2005. In fact four of my portraits of them have been used as our Christmas cards through the years.
Thank you Judy for sharing your beautiful home today, and for your lovely sentiments on decorating. I could not agree more! For additional inspiration, please follow Judy on Instagram.
