Room of the Week: Misty Watercolour Memories
No nostalgia, just a perfect balance of color and light
Photos by Thomas Loof.
Whenever my first husband threatened to get sentimental, I’d say, “Enough of the misty watercolour memories.” (Don’t worry; he would return the favour. We were wonderfully matched in that regard.) For those of you several decades younger than I, “misty watercolour memories” is a line from the sappy title song of what I assume is the equally sappy movie The Way We Were.
This Hamptons living area designed by Amy Lau immediately brought that phrase to mind. But there’s nothing sappy about this space!
This room is certain to delight those who relish colour as well as those who prefer no colour at all—an almost impossible feat. I’m guessing the space was designed around the eight framed paintings. It might have been tempting to balance the vivid art with equally vivacious upholstery and rugs and curtains. Or one could have ventured far into the opposite direction, limiting additional colour to only the rug, or only the curtains, or only a few throw pillows.
But this is perfection: cushions in hues that echo those of the artwork, sunny yellow upholstery limited to the four chairs in the corner, a complementary blue sculpture in another corner, that glorious ombré rug.
Beyond the colour story there’s the integration of organic elements such as the tree-root cocktail table amid the more-refined features like the splayed and tapered chair and ottoman legs and the delicate weave of the draperies. Also note that for every straight line there seems to be a graceful curve, be it the body of the floor lamp, the arms of the chairs, the silhouette of the sofa by the window.
The trio of nesting tables, whose geode-like tops rest on metal legs cast to resemble tree branches, epitomizes this room’s spectacular balancing act of nature and art. I love the space so much, I don’t even care that “The Way We Were” is now stuck on repeat in my mind.
Damn - now that song is running in my head. Before I read this it was all so simple then.