Showhouse Solutions

Small Touches Yield Big Results

Celeste E. Davis sets a daybed at an angle to sympathize with a room's lines. (Timothy Bell - For the Washington Post)

The NSO Decorators' Showhouse, philanthropic aims aside, is all about introducing people to the best ideas of the area's top designers. Walking from room to room, visitors are treated to a pageant of more than two dozen "big pictures" in paradoxically small frames: the creative vision of each decorator expressed in a single, discrete space.

But closer inspection reveals a wealth of less obvious details that offer inspiration to those in search of simple ways to reap sophisticated effects in their own homes. Here are five:

Playing the angles

Canting a piece of furniture, even very slightly, in relation to walls or rugs, can alter a room's geometry in interesting ways. In a small room on the second floor, a sharply jutting wall resulted in an unusually angled corner. Washington decorator Celeste E. Davis capitalized on the challenging architecture by situating a sleek daybed at a tilt on a rectangle of sassy, retro white shag. Simply rotating the daybed a few degrees away from the carpet's edge created a striking diagonal that highlighted the interplay of the room's lines. Even in a more typical square or rectangular room, placing furniture at an angle can completely transform the dynamics of a space. Best of all, this design innovation takes little time -- and no money.

Down with television

The good news: More and more people are making an effort to conceal the increasingly mammoth television sets that have come to dominate family rooms. The bad news: They're concealing them in gargantuan, wardrobe-like entertainment centers that are even more imposing than the TVs, taking up valuable wall space and often overwhelming the room. An ebonized cherry media cabinet designed by Susan Gulick Interiors of Reston is long and low, leaving the wall above free for hanging favorite artworks. At the press of a button on a remote control, a 60-inch, flat-screen television emerges from an inconspicuous slat at the rear of the cabinet and instantly converts the family room into a home theater. When the movie's over, the screen disappears once more -- letting artworks take their rightful pride of place.

Taking a shine to stripes

Sometimes a monochromatic color scheme isn't, exactly. For a well-appointed master bath, Scott Hixson of Washington-based Scott Hixson Design added texture to the walls by applying horizontal bands of the same color (Benjamin Moore Coventry Grey, No. HC-169) in two different finishes -- satin and flat. The difference between tones is almost imperceptible at first, but when daylight hits the wall just so, the satin-finish stripes give off the faintest of shimmers, lending unexpected vibrancy to this otherwise subdued space. Though achieved solely through a clever use of paint, the net effect is almost architectural in the way it suggests the happy marriage of two similar, though not identical, materials.

Getting the light right

The lights above bathroom mirrors, especially in older homes, are often unattractive and, worse, ineffective. Exposed bulbs directly above the mirror tend to cast shadows downward over the contours of one's face -- not exactly an uplifting vision first thing in the morning. Replacing a central fixture with side sconces means having to plaster over and repaint an ugly hole. An elegant solution employed by Elise Seidita and Robin J. Wagner, of Baker Barnett Interiors in Springfield, came in the form of a tripartite fixture that can be easily installed in the opening atop the mirror, with two graceful satin-nickel arms that reach down on each side and provide illumination where it's most needed, and most flattering -- right next to your face. (Solutions Bath Vanity, from Forecast Lighting, www.forecastltg.com). In an upstairs bathroom, the designers attached the fixture to a dimmer, meaning that light levels can be intensified for all those times when you can't afford to miss a spot.

To wit

It takes confidence in one's own vision to have the words "Hi" and "Bye" embroidered directly into the fabric on a pair of $3,300 Christian Liaigre chairs. But that's exactly what Washington designer David H. Mitchell did, placing the duo in opposite corners of the tiny upstairs guest bedroom he transformed into a meditative, deep green refuge. It's a perfect example of how tiny, imaginative details can have transformative power: The unexpected jolt that comes from seeing text more typically reserved for a throw pillow -- which Mitchell originally considered -- embroidered onto the back of the chairs themselves changes these elegant furnishings into memorable artworks. Upping the style ante put a playful and permanent stamp on the chairs and made them unique.