3 Interior Designers Transform The Same Cozy Living Room

[Narrator] These three interior designers

have been given a photograph of an empty, cozy living room.

They have free reign to design it in any way they please.

Hello, I'm Noz.

I love creating a space that has so much comfy coziness,

but is also visually very exciting to look at.

Hi, my name is Erick,

and my design style's intentional, earthy, and minimal.

Hi, my name is Mandy.

I really love layers and textures

and lots of elements to make it feel really cozy.

[Narrator] No clients, no restrictions, just blank space.

As I'm looking at this room, I absolutely adore it.

It is so cozy already.

I love the short ceiling, I love the warm woods.

I love seeing all of those trees in the windows.

But there's not enough there yet.

Right off the bat,

I see that there's a beautiful fireplace,

but there's really nothing that's calling attention to it.

In the original room,

I really love what I see outside of the windows,

and I really wanna bring that in.

[low upbeat music]

As I'm envisioning where this living room is in a house,

I think of it as almost going toward the back,

and it's away from the front door.

So that means that you're toward the backyard.

I want you to be able to get to the backyard

from a space like this,

so that when it's chilly outside,

you can come back inside and the fireplace is on.

Ooh, so cozy.

So I'm gonna do a Dutch door,

a Dutch door that has a windowed surface up top,

and you can just open that to let the breeze through,

and one at the bottom where you can actually get outside.

And I'm gonna make it all wood

because as much as I think these windows

perfectly make sense in the space,

I wanna create a more rustic, cozy countryside vibe.

For this back window and these side windows,

I really want to warm them up

and make them more accessible.

So by turning this into French doors,

it will make this room feel a little more connected

to the outside.

I'd also like to build a balcony off of it.

So you could imagine going out there

for a cup of coffee or an intimate dinner.

I really love wood finishes,

so I would love to replace these windows

with a stain grade wood on the inside,

and that will make the room feel a little bit cozier

and warmer and more sophisticated.

So I'm not crazy about these windows.

They're not really adding much to the space.

I feel like they're too small

when you have this beautiful landscape in the back

that you can't appreciate.

So I wanna really open up the entire space

by adding stack back doors

that are gonna completely open up this wall and this wall.

And then really just bringing in the woods

with a natural walnut

that's gonna make the space feel earthy.

So for the window treatments,

I want to go a little bold,

and this is because it's a smaller room,

so I have an opportunity to make it feel

just a little bit more whimsical and fun and relaxed,

since it's a living room.

So for the curtains, I chose this fabric here.

It's a House of Hackney fabric that I turned into drapes,

and then this beautiful fabric here

that I've done for the Roman shades on this window.

So this wall feels a little empty,

and there's not much happening here.

I wanna introduce stone here

so that it really just creates

another focal point in the space.

I wanna add plaster to the rest of the wall

so that it really just brings in another element

of material that feels earthy

that's gonna play really nice

with the rest of the materials in the space.

So I'm thinking something

that is a very traditional color of a blue or a navy

or something earth driven.

But I am thinking of a similar Voutsa wallpaper

that is more bubbly and navy and ombres,

from deep navy at the bottom,

through to something lighter.

So since it's a tiny little room, it's not too much.

This room, because it's small,

it's easy to just keep it painted walls.

I would love to add to the texture instead.

So I've chosen a green grass cloth wallpaper

to paper the walls and the ceiling with

just to tie it all in

and make it feel like it's all encompassing.

I think that the green wallpaper

will compliment these color tones really nicely.

And then when it comes to the ceiling,

I mean, this is where we go full cottage cabin vibes.

A lot of these older cottage homes actually,

when you take the drywall down,

which is a more modern invention architecturally,

what you will see is the underside of the floor above.

So that is what I'm gonna do here.

We're just gonna almost expose

what's underneath this drywall ceiling

and we're gonna make sure

that there's a really cute finish on it.

And we're gonna do beams across,

which holds the floor up,

and then crosses the floorboards from above.

So looking at the space,

there's not much happening with the ceiling.

It feels a little just bare.

So I'm gonna flip it around

and maybe clad the entire ceiling

so that it grounds the space.

Because I am removing these two walls,

I need something that's gonna balance it

and make it feel grounded,

and cladding the ceiling's gonna be

the perfect approach to that.

So the cladding in the ceiling,

the walnut is also gonna be the same trim

around the bifold doors

so that it all feels cohesive into the space.

I really wanted the entry experience

into this room to feel grand

because it's an intimate space.

So the juxtaposition of that.

So I created this archway around the room

to really frame out the room

and make you see it like a picture frame.

When you look in, you see all of this art behind it.

So for the ceiling,

I would like to add some wood beams

just to tie in with my aesthetic,

which is really just to bring in more organic natural tones

and materials to warm up a space.

[cozy jazz music]

The floors are already hardwood, which is great,

but I want to echo the lines of the beams

across the ceiling.

We're gonna turn the wood direction 90 degrees,

so that again, everything is running parallel to each other.

We're gonna make the boards a little bit narrower

because that is actually a more traditional way

to do hardwood.

And we're gonna go with a matching almost finish

so that the ceiling and the floor really echo one another.

The floors that I chose are a wide plank white oak floor

that's stained a nice rich honey tone,

and it ties in really nicely

with the wood beams in the ceiling

and the wood detail in the entry surround.

So I'm gonna remove the wood floor, since,

again, it's not really doing much for the space.

And I'm gonna introduce a polished concrete

that's gonna also have almost the same effect

as the lime wash,

so that it just really brings in

that nice balance of wall to floor

and it feels cohesive and continuous.

That's gonna basically run from the indoor

all the way out to the outdoor deck.

And it just makes the space feel connected to the outdoor.

I am so obsessed with Jan Kath.

They are an incredible rug designer.

They're a contemporary group.

They make these gorgeous wool and silk rugs

that are made the traditional way.

But they take a traditional motif,

and then they screw around with it.

So this is one that's almost got an ottoman energy

or a Turkish energy.

I feel like a rug really ties the room together.

It tells you where the exact gathering space is.

So I don't have a proper rug sample,

but this gives you an idea of the colors of it.

It's nice and plush and patterned

and just ties in with all the other patterns in the room.

But I kept them very neutral earthy colors

so that it doesn't compete too much.

It's already a very visually exciting room,

and I didn't want that to be too loud.

[low upbeat music]

So I'm not crazy about the position

of the fireplace right now

because I need that working wall

so that I can do something else with it,

and I love a good floating mid-century esque fireplace.

So to make a focal point in the space,

I wanna introduce a fireplace

that's gonna be coming down from the ceiling floating.

It's not gonna obstruct the view to the outdoors,

so that when you open up all the bifold doors,

it's really just gonna feel

like the fire's almost outside like a campfire,

and you're inside enjoying it.

But when it gets really cold, you can close it up,

and it still feels like it's part of the space,

and you just get that beautiful smell.

Again, it's all about sensory design for me.

I wanna see the fire, I wanna smell the fire.

I wanna maybe not touch the fire,

but you can feel the fire, the warmth of it.

And I feel like it's gonna really enhance the space.

I also absolutely adore this fireplace,

but what we have here is already bricky red,

which I'm thinking is gonna happen

all over the furniture and the rug instead.

I'm envisioning marble.

I love a stone mantle.

I think that's so beautiful.

And I also am really into panda marble.

It's sourced from China.

It's literally called panda marble.

The panda marble to me is the thing

that modernizes the whole room.

It makes it just unexpected,

but the stones materiality and organic nature

feels like it makes sense with the wallpaper.

[Mandy] So I wrapped the fireplace hearth

in this black and white deckled edge marble.

I really love natural materials

and this unpolished toned texture and the uneven edges,

and the area rug is like a little mild echo

of this checkered pattern.

And then to accentuate the face of the fireplace,

I used another Portola Paints Roman Clay.

This one is called Costes.

[cozy jazz music]

So in the original space,

there was a sofa that I just was not crazy about.

I think the scale was off.

I'm not crazy about the color.

It feels a little sad.

So because I removed the fireplace

from this working wall here,

it really allowed me to do something built-in.

When I try to design a space,

I think ahead in five, 10 years,

something that's gonna still have the test of time.

And when you do a built-in, it never goes outta style.

It's not trendy.

It's something that's gonna grow with the house

and also give you a space where you can sit here

and open up the entire walls

and really just be connected to the landscape.

So outside, people need a place to sit

and have a glass of wine or have a coffee.

So I would like to put a little bistro table out there,

and it'll also give the illusion

of additional seating inside.

So it just ties the outside in.

I actually really like the simplicity of the layout.

This is a very little room.

The idea that you would put a couch

right under the side window facing the fireplace,

there's nothing revolutionary about that.

But I also am not here to change things arbitrarily

just to change them.

I'm thinking of something, again,

that really feels cozy and inviting and traditional,

but has a twist on tradition.

So there's this piece,

it's called the Ottoman Sofa by George Smith.

I absolutely love it.

And then as for covering,

I really think that I wanna upholster it in something warm.

So I've got these different fabrics.

I'm envisioning something.

Oh my gosh, look, corduroy.

If you can't see it, I am wearing corduroy pants.

I'm having a moment.

But something that's really soft to the touch,

really cozy and richly earthy, bricky red-orange.

I'm going to keep the sofa where it is.

And I chose this really beautiful, bold, amber color velvet.

And it ties in really nicely with these colors here.

But it is a feature piece,

so it's going to be a little bit loud and fun,

and I love that.

I wanted to add a chair that felt, again, collected,

that felt antique.

I like things that feel like you found or found you,

and I think that chair is gonna be perfect for that space.

And also things that are modular,

like if I wanna sit on one side of the room,

things are light enough

where I can pick it up and move them around.

Something that you need in front of your sofa is somewhere

to put a drink or a snack.

And I really love coffee tables normally,

but I can't really put a coffee table,

a standard size coffee table in this room

because I added a Dutch door,

which means that you need to be able to walk easily

through the space.

So instead of a proper sized coffee table,

I'm envisioning three little side tables.

I've personally been such a fan

of Michael Verheydens' pieces.

And he has these stools

that are made out of all different kinds of natural stone,

and I wanna pick three of them.

And they're all gonna be completely different stones

sourced from totally different places.

I chose to do ottomans instead of a coffee table,

and part of it is just for functional reasons.

Given the size of the room,

a coffee table will probably make the room

feel a little bit small.

So I really wanna do ottomans

so that it still feels open,

and you're able to easily walk through

to the French doors that I create.

I would like to do two different ottomans.

And if you just imagine people sitting on the sofa,

being able to easily pull them up

to set something down on top of them,

and then easily push them back together.

So one of them will be this really pretty leather

that ties in nicely with this color palette

without taking away from it.

And then my accent color would be this patterned ottoman

that's a hexagon shape.

So I wanna use a day bed

on the opposite side of the room where,

if you wanted to take a nap,

if you wanted to have the fire on,

read a book, have a glass of wine,

you can really just sit there, enjoy it,

or if you wanna move the tables around,

if you wanna move the stools around.

Everything has intention.

So I don't wanna overcrowd the space

by adding too many pieces.

I want the right pieces that are gonna have purpose.

I don't know about you,

but I am very annoyed all the time

when I need to lean all the way forward

from my loungey couch to put my drink down.

So I always like to also have a little side table

to the left or right of my couch

so that I can just easily set something down.

So I'm gonna put another one here.

I'm actually gonna go with wood

and lacquered wood in this case.

This piece is from an African designer.

It's a contemporary piece from like the last 15 years.

The artist's name is Elgrabli.

So in the back corner,

I wanna add a little chair here.

I found this beautiful chair from Nickey Kehoe

and I wanna upholster it in the same fabric

as what I'm going to do for the Roman shades.

And then I would love to add in a little touch of brass.

It's like jewelry.

So having a side table in this antique brass finish

with this fabric here,

and then the curtains in the background,

it'll be so pretty.

I want this room to be conversational.

I want there to be able to be like...

It's not just you alone on your couch

looking at the fireplace.

What if you have friends?

I mean, hopefully you do.

So I wanna add two chairs on either side of the fireplace.

I wanna make them mismatch.

[low upbeat music]

I love a little chandelier in a room like this.

It's such a bold move to put something

over top of what would be a coffee table.

So I want that to be an art piece.

I love lighting as art.

So this one is from Katie Stout that I'm thinking of.

It is so beautiful.

I saw it in New York City.

She casts things in brass.

She makes things out of porcelain and ceramic.

And it feels like this collected blob

of billions of ideas

that are all so brilliant and put together.

For the lighting,

I wanted to keep it very minimal and very ambient

so that at night when you're winding down,

you really just have those nice little sconces lit,

and they just feel like, again, it's the warm light.

It feels very almost sexy and cool.

For the chandelier in the center of the room,

I would really love to do something that has glass

so that it doesn't feel like it's taking away

more real estate in a sense.

It feels open and airy.

So we've got this corner, it's dark.

I love lighting a corner, especially with a floor lamp.

I wanna do something with a voluminous shade.

And there's this one from Paavo Tynell,

and I love that it arches in.

It comes into the space

so you can tuck the base all the way into the corner,

but then the lampshade floats in the room.

Over the fireplace,

I would love to add a wall sconce

because I really love wall sconces

and just that ambient lighting.

It'll be really nice

if you're trying to have a more intimate conversation

in this room.

You don't have to turn on any of the overhead lights.

You can just have that light turned on,

and it will highlight the architecture of the fireplace.

And then I wanna light the fireplace.

I feel very, very strongly

that there should be art over the fireplace,

and we wanna light it from both sides.

And there are these two from Julian Chichester

who I'm obsessed with.

I love these lamps so much.

They're squiggle squangles.

It's the best.

Squangle is a word I made up.

You're gonna hear me use it again one day in the future

if I'm allowed back.

[cozy jazz music]

For the art, I have been following an artist, Matt Smoak,

that just graduated from Yale, MFA.

I love his portraits.

I think there's something soft and minimal about them

that really work well with my interiors.

And I saw this image and right away knew

that I wanted to use it there

because there's something very masculine,

but feminine about it.

And there's a nice balance in contrast with that art piece.

So underneath of the art light,

I've placed a painting that just ties in with the fireplace

and helps you continue your gaze all the way up.

The art piece that I'm choosing is by an artist

who I admire so very much.

He's a Bolivian artist who lives in Canada

named Marcelo Suaznabar.

One of the things that I love is he makes little creatures.

So it's very much about nature,

but the creatures are like Fantasia.

I really love the way that trees and plants frame a space.

So I am going to do a nice big rubber tree

in the foreground here,

and then hang a plant back here.

And they're at varying heights

so that you really appreciate the entire height of the room.

I love, love, love the design.

I think it's somewhere where I wanna live

and somewhere that I wanna experience.

And ultimately, I think it's something

that just is gonna inspire you to just sit

and be calm and present

and really just be creative.

If I'm being honest,

this is maybe one of my favorite rooms I've ever designed.

I've always wanted a Dutch door.

I hope and pray that one day I will have a Dutch door

in my life someday.

I would absolutely move in

and I would stay every winter, every summer.

This would be my perfect tiny,

teeny tiny baby cottage vacation home.

I really love this room.

I love all of the textures and colors.

It's not often that clients allow me to be this bold

and have these many textures

and elements all pushed into one room.

Viola.

[All] Oh!

Wow!

These are so different.

Wow, they're so different.

And did we all screw around with the ceiling?

Wait.

Yeah. Yes, we did.

But see how wood is trending through all of our designs?

No, for sure.

I think just having,

knowing that the outside was gonna be filled with trees,

we all just wanted to tie into that.

Naturally gravitated to one.

Just the scale of the space was so cozy and tiny.

It was like this was somebody's old farmhouse

that we're modernizing or not.

Or not.

[all laughing]

Well, I don't know.

I mean, mine is so not modern.

I really went for countryside

and I love that yours is so...

I mean, your floating fireplace

is giving me so many vibes right now.

I want one.

I know, I want one too. [laughs]

So beautiful.

Again, I designed this for myself.

Yeah, no.

I'm like, No clients for this one, it's me. [laughs]

When they say no budget, I'm like, Oh, it's for me.

Exactly.

Mandy, I love your color story.

Yeah, this is so beautiful.

Obsessed with your color story.

The greens are so...

They remind me of your house actually.

'Cause I just saw your house in AD, which was amazing.

Thanks. But wait, this is beautiful.

Tell us about the wallpaper.

So it's a green grass cloth.

That's a Phillip Jeffries wallpaper.

I love the texture of it.

So this room was, because it was small,

I just felt like we needed to pack in all of the texture,

all of the things. Punch it in, yeah.

Wait, so tell us.

You removed the fireplace.

Yeah, I felt like that wall was so important,

it was the only working wall,

that I wanted to turn that into a built-in seating area,

and then switch the fireplace on this side

and make it more of a unique focal point.

There was something that felt very '60s cabin

when I first saw the image,

that I wanted to just

make it a little bit more contemporary.

[Mandy] Yeah, I love that you move the fireplace

because now you can sit here and enjoy the fire

and the view. And the view, yeah.

So I just imagine myself

having a glass of wine there. We're all staring at walls.

But you know, they're great walls.

They're great walls.

I would love to stare at those walls.

Yeah, Noz, how did you come up with the color scheme?

'Cause it feels really warm.

I don't know.

There was something about me

that was really feeling like an Americana red and navy,

but done in more of a tomato rich cognac colorway.

And then I wanted to take that and make it modern.

I saw this cabin, I was like, Uh, this is so cute.

I could see it in Appalachia or something like that.

It is true that all of your furniture,

they're traditional shapes, but then they're modernized.

That's so cool.

Well, I'm obsessed with skirts right now.

So sorry, clients.

Are you having a skirt moment?

Yes, I really am in a skirt period.

And so I wanted to have something

that came all the way to the floor,

but then screw around.

Where do I add a skirt?

I wanna add a skirt too.

I wanna add a skirt somewhere.

[all laughing]

[low upbeat music]