This week, I spoke with top designers for advice on how to bring outdoor style into the home for a fresh, new look that connects the home to its natural surroundings.

Bring Outdoor Style Indoors with Biophilic Design

The simplest and most effective way to bring the outdoors into your home is with plants and flowers. Nothing makes one feel more connected with nature than being around living things. The power of plants on our mood has blossomed into the trend of biophilic design. For instance, try a large fiddle leaf plant next to a sunny window or a bright pop of flowers in a pretty vase.

Christin Engh of Mare Design in Greenwich, CT recommends bringing in live arrangements into an otherwise neutral palette. The vibrant, natural color are all the more impactful against a clean white backdrop. In this way, plants and flowers can function like art and accessories, with the added bonus of connecting us to nature.

Featured image, right and below by Jane Beiles

Tropical Wallpapers Make You Feel Warm All Year Round

Cecilia Casagrande of Brookline, MA takes the biophilic trend one step further by integrating natural elements into her designs via tropical wallpaper patterns and fresh color schemes. In her own home, Cecilia ensures a warm and lush atmosphere, even during the long New England winters.

 

Cecilia uses wallpapers that crawl with tropical vines, tile that turns plants leaves into pattern and of course, lots of real-life plants that add to the lush rainforest feel. 

This approach is evident in the designer’s ping pong table room with overscale palm leaf wallpaper that transports one to a sunny vacation spot. 

Images above, left and below by Sean Litchfield

 

 

 

Pink Sand Tones Bring the Outside into this Spa Sanctuary

This “Spa Sanctuary” by Barbara Lewis of The Lewis Design Group for the Holiday House Hamptons Showhouse takes a more feminine and serene approach to Hamptons design.

The inspiration here comes from the Hamptons beaches with their pink-toned sand. That color scheme is woven into this design that is meant as a spa sanctuary space (complete with massage table and bar stocked with chilled rose) where friends can relax post-beach, pre-dinner.

Photography by JJ Jetel