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- [00:02]
Caroline
Welcome to how to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer.
- [00:13]
Liz
I'm Liz. I head up the creative team.
- [00:15]
Caroline
We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode.
- [00:25]
Liz
We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us@podcastallardesigns.net now, on with the show.
- [00:35]
Caroline
Today, we are thrilled to welcome back to the show Marshall Watson. You may remember him from episode 156, when we discussed his first book, the Art of Elegance. And today he's back to share with us his latest book, Defining Elegance, set to release this month. Marshall reveals his design principles through a variety of stunning environments, exploring how to marry history with modern sensibilities. For the first time, readers were also good to step inside one of his own homes and his garden, gaining a deeper understanding of his approach to achieving harmony and design. Marshall, welcome back to the show.
- [01:09]
Marshall Watson
Well, thank you very much and beautifully said.
- [01:13]
Caroline
Oh, well, you know what? Your book is so it truly is elegant. And I love how elegance is sort of the touchstone for both books. The first one being the Art of Elegance, the second one defining Elegance. And it's just so fun to see the variety of projects you have throughout. I mean, you've got Hawaii, Hawaii, You've got Florida, the Hamptons, South, Southern California. There's such a variety of spaces, including your own condo on the Upper east side. And so you really get to see, like, such a variety of color and style and the way you're. You're really designing spaces for your clients own personal stories and the, the locales that they're in.
- [01:58]
Marshall Watson
And I certainly have a lot of frequent flyer miles.
- [02:01]
Caroline
True, true. You must, you must. You get to travel to really, really gorgeous places.
- [02:07]
Marshall Watson
I do, I do. I've been very fortunate in my career that I've been able to travel quite a few places. And we've always taken projects that interest us, with people that interest us and people that we know that we're going to get along with. I think one of the great skills that our firm brings to the board is that we love to research. We love to immerse ourselves in whatever environment, whatever architecture, and of course, the client themselves. We want to get to know them as deeply as possible. And my background in theater, I don't know if you know that I was originally, I was originally a theater designer and actually I was an actor.
- [02:55]
Caroline
Yes, I remember that from last time.
- [02:58]
Marshall Watson
Many, many of those paths have guided me towards the designer that I am today. Because, as you know, if you're designing a Shakespeare's Henry V, you're not going to do the same as a Neil Simon comedy. And also I was. And when I was an actor and I was on as the World Turns, I came to New York originally. I was on a soap opera, and I was on and off Broadway and did all of that for many years. But even I was always considered myself a character actor. And maybe that came from partially training as a theater designer, because you had to research and research and research and then you let all the research go, you know, and then, then you performed the character. But the character was something that, yes, it was part of you, but it was also you had to observe and really delve deeply into the mind, the soul and the experiences and the history of the character itself, which, of course, in getting to know clients and getting to know their environments and getting to know their dreams and their wishes and their hopes and their aspirations, what could be better training?
- [04:12]
Caroline
That is true. I wonder if there is like. Do you think a lot of designers have that background? Probably not, but you're right, it does work so well.
- [04:22]
Marshall Watson
I think the wonderful thing about our profession is you can come to it from many different points of view and from. From many, many other careers. I've known many people who have changed, not midlife, but in their 30s or 40s, sometimes even their 50s, from a banking career, from. From a studio art career, from real estate into this profession, because they've fallen so much in love with the art of decoration.
- [04:52]
Liz
So what was that transition like for you from going from soap opera star to interior design star?
- [05:01]
Marshall Watson
Well, it took a while to be an interior design star. I really, I had, actually, when I. My undergraduate education was at Stanford University in California, where I studied, believe it or not, engineering, art and English, all of those three at the same time, and they melded together. I came out of Stanford in 1975. There were gas lines, if you remember, because you're way too young, because you're probably my children or my grandchildren's age, and there were no jobs for designers, none whatsoever. But I was an actor and I could get work as an actor. So, you know, speed forward to my, My years on as the World Turns and also, you know, in New York And Broadway. I decided that I really did love this profession. I was, you know, I was doing what everybody does. You know, you design your own home and you have a flair for it. I was also a painter. You know, I, I was a landscape painter and a portrait painter. And so all of those skills came together and I was a union SC artist. I always forget I have a lot of professions, so there were many skills that brought it to me. But I wanted to really learn what the profession was about. So I went back to school at FIT and worked very hard on the many courses there that taught me many of the skills. And then, of course, I apprenticed for a while for several designers, which I think was invaluable to learn both their skills and the business side of it. But also you kind of learn what mistakes they go through. And you can make mistakes on the job training and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg in the beginning.
- [06:53]
Caroline
Well, one of the things you talked about, and I believe it was with. You were talking about a project in Southern California and it was a like, very grand scale home. And you talked about one of your first jobs working for a designer. And she told you that if you solve the scale and proportion, then everything else.
- [07:16]
Marshall Watson
Everything else is the dessert topping. Yes, she did. She gave me this great advice about proportion and scale. And she said, Marshall, if you get the scale and proportion of the furniture right, the interior architecture correct correctly, the. The decorating is just the cream of the crop. But also, I've always viewed, we always try to get the interior architecture correct in the beginning. And if we can't, then we use all the decorating tools in our toolbox to solve those problems.
- [07:53]
Caroline
Yeah, well, I, I really enjoyed that book in particular, because I felt like it had lessons that were so applicable to so many of our listeners. You know, this living room in particular that you were, you know, talking about with the scale and proportion story was a very grand double story living room. And it was triple story, triple story living room. And it was very, very, very large.
- [08:17]
Marshall Watson
Yes.
- [08:18]
Caroline
And I loved studying it because we often get people writing in because they have rooms that are double story living rooms. And it's a conundrum, you know, they nothing. It's hard to get things to feel right. And so I wonder if you could, like, walk people through some tools that you use to create a sense of intimacy in there and to bring scale.
- [08:44]
Marshall Watson
Down to a human scale. Yeah, I always recommend that all designers, all young designers, all designers and everybody in between, you know, take a tour to Europe, take a tour to other places in, in the world to learn not only about other cultures, but about design, architecture and interiors. And I think one of the most surprising things were when I went originally to Blenheim and I was walking in the living room of Blenheim and I was looking in the furniture. And Blenheim's living room was four and five stories tall. But the room was very articulated architecturally on the interior. So there were, there was many details that went all the way up the five stories. That was one lesson I learned. But the other was that the furniture was just human scale. It was. The sofas were. The sofas were probably 96 inches long. The chairs were normal sized chairs and the lamps were perhaps a little bit taller. But you don't solve the scale of a gargantuan room by making gargantuan furniture. You really don't. You still have to make the room comfortable. Perhaps you need more furniture. And the furniture needs to have a relationship with each other. It needs to have the furniture, needs to talk to each other. You know, a sofa with two chairs facing in is the obvious selection for many living rooms that people. So that it can converse. You always think about it conversing. And in large spaces you sometimes you can raise the scale or the height of the back. You can raise it 2 or 3 inches, but you can't raise it 2 or 3ft. It's going to look silly in a space like that because suddenly the people start looking tiny, right? So you need to make it comfortable. And frequently, like in Blenheim, it's layers. It's layers of beautiful fabrics. Now some of the fabrics have larger scale to them. The carpets have larger scale. There's a sense of heightened color. The lamps have substantial lampshades on them. They're not bare bulbs. So I noticed that there was volume in the room created by other things, but not simply by making gigantic furniture to fill the space.
- [11:28]
Liz
That is a great point. And one of the things that I noticed in your work too, and looking at your new book, is that you do a really fantastic job of making multi purposes areas within one space. So just kind of that, that tip of like adding more furniture is really fantastic because you could use it to make a games area or an. Or an additional seating area or something more to the room versus putting a big oversized sofa.
- [11:58]
Marshall Watson
Exactly. Because everybody, floor plan, I mean scale and proportion, of course, but you must start with the floor plan and the floor plan. I find tremendous creativity in the floor plan. And you can fit all forms of different forms of scale of furniture. I think there's nothing more boring than a room that has, you know, matching sofa, matching chairs. And also what kills it is the matching proportions of the chairs. Everything's 36 inches deep. You know, everything's, you know, everything's 34 inches tall. Varying the heights, varying the depths really helps in terms of these very large rooms. And also, as you were saying, there people are living in one room quite frequently. You know, most. Most homes, they used to call them great rooms. Now they call them family rooms. Most people are living in one room anyway, so why not arrange it so that you can have, you know, you can have an area for art projects and now backgammon and mahjong and puzzles and all these things. A game table area. And also you can have a dining table in back of your sofa. The British are so brilliant about. In the backs of the sofas. They don't just leave them blank. They bring either a desk or a table, and sometimes they dine there, you know, at the table facing into the beautiful room. But also they have. But also you can do your. Your desk work. You can have your desk there, and then you want to make yourself just a little bit bigger so that all the clutter, you know, you. You hide it from the rest of the room.
- [13:46]
Caroline
Well, I. You know, we have had like 400 episodes of this podcast, and for some reason, seeing that. That living room in that project in California, I was like, oh, my gosh, this totally clicks. Like, everything that a person is interacting with, the chairs, the side tables, the dining chairs, the sofa is human scaled. Everything that you're not really touching. The curtains, the drapery, or, I'm sorry, the drapery, the lighting, the mirror, the. The v. The urns on the fireplace, the mantel. That was all scaled to the room. But then, like, the actual furniture was scaled.
- [14:22]
Marshall Watson
Furniture was scaled to the humans. There is another trick in rooms like that, and I've learned it. There are several projects. And I'm so glad you've said, by the way, that it is a book that you can learn from, because I work so very hard in every one of the chapters to try to have some lesson that somebody can walk away with both visually and verbally. Another thing in very large rooms to bring to is that if you notice, you'll see chandeliers. Now, they may be very contemporary chandeliers, like a wrought iron chandelier, maybe a. It could be a crystal chandelier. It could be, but. But many. Or lanterns. I use lanterns frequently, but they're Hung lower in the room. And also once again, at human scale. Like normally, you know, a lantern about, you know, you can hang a chandelier as low as well, depending on the height of the ceiling. But in these very large rooms, you can hang it up to down to 8ft and down to 7ft, 6 inches, depending on your basketball player friends. And we do have friends who have enormous basketball friends. And we're always saying, okay, what's the height of your tallest friend? When I come into these little colonial houses? Because then I know how low I can hang everything. But that also brings the scale of the ceiling down too. And if you notice, the curtains also help too. Now the curtains in that one, in all of those instances, the rooms are tall.
- [15:53]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [15:53]
Marshall Watson
So I don't object to the curtains that go all the way up. I want them to go all the way up so that we celebrate the height of those rooms. But it also gives a tremendous softness. There's a lot of fabric in those curtains.
- [16:06]
Caroline
Yeah. But expensive curtains. But I know they do their job.
- [16:10]
Marshall Watson
Yes, they're called, they're called window treatments because you get the treatment when you buy them.
- [16:16]
Caroline
I love that. Well, you know, it's so funny because we always even those, that room, like it had those arch, those three arched windows. And we get that question all the time. I think we answered one last week because the arched windows are so challenging and difficult to figure out how to dress. And you do what pretty much all designers recommend you do, which is just mount the rod above the top of the arch and don't chop the arch in half.
- [16:46]
Marshall Watson
And no, don't do that, don't do that. But you will see in my book, you'll notice there is one drapery treatment that I've used actually in my own book in my own home. And it's in the chapter on our. And it is a very high waisted treatment. Sometimes you can, I mean, we've done many treatments over Palladian windows and over them where it is, it's actually shaped at the top, but then it's drawn back very high just the way, just the way the empire dresses were. If you think about the women, remember how, you know, all the fabric fell right below the bust line and it made the women seem like they were, you know, 10ft tall. And it is a, it's, it's a treatment concept that the British did so beautifully in John Fowler and Nancy Lancaster's period.
- [17:41]
Caroline
Yeah, well, you were talking about floor plans and creativity in floor plans. And I did notice that throughout the book and there was one project in particular, it was that Kansas City like penthouse apartment. And you, it's a very large room and you've divided it in half. And it's. Well, the floor plan looked to be like a mirror image or symmetrical. You've got an L shaped sectional and then you've got armchairs on the other side. But then in the middle of that, that arrangement you had some floating Louis chairs. Louis armchairs. And I thought it was so unusual because now I'm not a designer, so I, of course I didn't think that it would work.
- [18:28]
Marshall Watson
You know, you've done 400 of these, so you're pretty much there.
- [18:32]
Caroline
I like to ask questions. No, but I was like, you know, I wouldn't have, I would not have thought that floating, the Louis chairs, armchairs in that arrangement would have worked. But I want you to tell me why it worked and maybe some guidelines for floating furniture because I do think that's scary for a lot of people, myself included.
- [18:51]
Marshall Watson
The room was a very large room and they entertain constantly and they're very philanthropic. So and they, they have all sorts of different. She is, she's been president of her garden club. So they'll have meetings there. So there was a need to have areas, large areas for large groupings of people and also that they could break up the area. Also it was a square room and there was a spectacular view at one end. So I designed it so that you entered and the, the back of the L shaped sofas faced you. There were these because I wanted to create as area as possible. You'll see that there are these beautiful acrylic consoles that sit, now sit behind them to kind of separate the entry foyer because the entry for you just bleed it in. I always want a sense of entry. So I always try to create a foyer. And then, then there are the, then there are the two L shaped sofas, but beyond them, and this is, this will lead back to the Louis XVI oval back chairs. Beyond them there was still a lot of room in which they wanted to have small areas. They're both readers, but they also want to be able to have a glass of wine. And so those chairs actually over there are swivel chairs so that they can swivel towards the view. And they're high, they're high above this area called the Plaza in Kansas City. And at Thanksgiving time there are these incredible Christmas lights. They line every building with Christmas lights. So people want to sit very close up to the windows and see that. So that allows for that area and Then floating in the center, because you don't want those chairs. If there was a very large group of people, they could indeed not. They could take the Louis XVI chairs out. But the Louis XVI chairs create a more intimate area between the two. And there was enough room to have the L shaped sofa, a normal sized coffee table, the two Louis XVI chairs, and then beyond them, the double groupings of swivel chairs. Does that make sense?
- [21:06]
Caroline
It does, it does. And, but. And I was.
- [21:08]
Marshall Watson
You had the. The. You could be intimate, you could be grand, you could have a cocktail party. And also those chairs, because they're very light, can be moved out of the way. And so you can have an enormous cocktail party.
- [21:19]
Caroline
So it was the versatility.
- [21:20]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, it was the versatility as well as intimacy.
- [21:24]
Caroline
Are there particular, like silhouettes, colors, styles that you find are best for floating, like Louis chairs?
- [21:33]
Marshall Watson
I think that floaters are the most exciting chairs because you can go hog wild with them in terms of design. So you can have absolutely the most contemporary floater chairs in a room. You can have. They don't have to be the largest chair. They can be something like a slipper chair. And it's great if they have legs because then they have a certain flexibility in which they can turn around. But one important thing you said is silhouette. You always want to appreciate the silhouette of the floater chairs that you're looking at. And remember that the floater chairs you're going to see, you want them to be beautiful from the front, but you also want them to be beautiful from the back. For many clients, we use their dining chairs. And why do we use their dining chairs? Because usually they're lighter. They're usually on four legs. But also the dining chairs, if you notice, you see the back of the dining chairs. You never see the front of the dining chairs because everybody's pushing the chairs up to the table. So dining chairs are a good way of. A flexible way of using floater chairs in the middle of the room. But I love to have exciting chairs in the middle, either very contemporary or traditional. Just a beautiful silhouette. That's what's important.
- [22:51]
Caroline
Okay, so interesting silhouette. Leggy and easy to pick up.
- [22:56]
Marshall Watson
Easy to pick up. Easy to move while people are there so that they can. They can just pull them. You to pull them to one side now, just to go a little bit history, a little bit of history. Because Billy Baldwin was really the great master of this. Billy Baldwin was a very short man. He was only about 5 foot 2. I saw him only once in the elevator at the DND building. And he was meticulously dressed, but he was so short, I almost. I almost bowled him over because, you know, I'm not big. But he was tiny. And he designed his slipper chairs. If you've ever seen them, they're absolutely tiny. And it was a way of sitting in the middle of the room that he designed them. He didn't design them to sit straight on. And of course, now you can't see me, but he designed them so that. Because if you think of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, the way people sat, they sat there, their arms would go over the back of the sofa, they'd be talking to you like this, and then their legs would be crossed over each other.
- [23:55]
Caroline
I love to sit.
- [23:56]
Marshall Watson
Both women and men would. Would do that. And if you see all those great fashion illustrations of that period, you see the people actually sat that way, and that's the way he designed them. But they were tiny chairs, and men as well as women were very comfortable in them.
- [24:11]
Liz
Is that to keep their cigarette ash from getting on the upholstery?
- [24:17]
Caroline
Bi N g O I always love to sit like that, though. It kind of gives you, like, a lean. You got a, like, cozy little lean thing to lean up against.
- [24:27]
Marshall Watson
And it's very elegant. You know, if you have great legs and, or. And you're wearing great slacks and you have wonderful socks and beautiful shoes, you know, Please.
- [24:38]
Caroline
And it, you know, placed. Depending on where they're placed in the room, you can, like, you have so much flexibility in your conversation, right? You can talk to those people who are there. Then those people over there have a better conversation. You can flip around. And so you can kind of like.
- [24:52]
Marshall Watson
Exactly. It's. It's, you know, a decorative, silhouetted, light swivel chair. If you think of it that way, right. Don't put the swivel on it because it. Because then it becomes this big, big mashed potato sitting in the middle of the room.
- [25:08]
Caroline
You know, I feel like people don't. Certainly designers do, but I feel like people don't appreciate that flexibility of the slipper chair. And so. And, you know, I remember talking to someone at some point, and they're like, why would I want a chair without arms? And I'm like, oh, well, it's such a great design.
- [25:25]
Marshall Watson
So now. So now we'll go once again into floor plans because of what we, as a firm, Marshall Watson, Reed Dean Gaines, what we specialize in. We always want to make sure that a room has seating for everyone. So in my long checkered history, I have Found that men really like to have arms. They really like to have arms. Slipper chairs. Not. Not really great for guys. They like them deeper. They do like sofas. You'll see frequently that a man will just plop himself down on the sofa. And I'm not being, you know, women do too, but. But it's generally. I found that men enjoy sofas and that women enjoy perching more. I don't know what this says about society, but I'm just. But they're only observations that I have to provide solutions for in terms of seating. So things like ottoman seems like. Things like slipper chairs, things like harder surface chairs. Especially if you're a host or a hostess, you want to be able to, you know, sit quickly down into the. Into the seating area, talk with everybody, and then. Oh, the, you know, the lasagna timer's going on.
- [26:36]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [26:36]
Marshall Watson
And the timer's going off, and you have to dash without ruining the conversation. Right. So there's always. And as people get older, you will find that older people prefer the harder seating as well. So your grandparents are going to. Are going to probably go to a hard back and a hard. A seat with a hard chair.
- [26:58]
Caroline
A chair they can get out of.
- [26:59]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, make sure that they can get out of. Exactly. And also by the fireplaces. I always like to have chairs for the children, you know, little. Because there's so many cute little chairs that were created in history. And I'm, you know, I do love. Obviously I love antiques, and I love antiques for a number of reasons, but I like antiques because it's the ultimate recycling. Right. And there are so many available and. And so many things were built so beautifully in the 18th century, 19th century. And why pass them by? Just. Just for, you know, just for style.
- [27:32]
Caroline
Yeah. Well, I. You. You said something a minute ago that I'd never really thought about, but it's so smart about having different, like, depths. And I feel like that's an easy way to kind of think about. Okay. I need something that's like 36 to 40, and then something that's more like 26. Yeah.
- [27:50]
Marshall Watson
And 24 and 18. You know, there's. And also ottoman, really service too. You know, ottoman are. Are perchable. And people. People can sit on the ottoman, too. They just have to be high enough and comfortable enough. And people do. For sofas, you kind of need to make. Make the cushions on the sofas higher. I love the Italians, man. I love the Italians, but I have no idea how they sit on their sofas. They're 16 inches tall. 16 inches tall. You know, I mean, we Americans were tall. You know, we're tall, and we're well fed, too. So, you know, we have to. You know, you need something that's between 18 and 20 inches, but 16 inches, it looks great. It's great for lounging and having, you know, your. Your earphones on and when you don't want to talk to anybody. But, boy, you have to have really good stomach muscles to keep yourself, you know, to pull yourself out of those things.
- [28:47]
Caroline
Yeah. Any woman that's been pregnant knows the challenge of a really deep sofa. You're like, wait, I can't get it.
- [28:54]
Liz
Yeah, it needs to come with a prying stick.
- [28:57]
Caroline
Hey, there was also a such a funny story that made me laugh out loud in the. I believe it was the project in Southern California. The other Southern California. No, no, I'm sorry. In Napa. And you were talking about choosing. Well, for one, you talk about continuity in your projects and how that's something that you think of in your firm as being sort of a touchstone of your work. You know, finding these design elements and weaving them throughout in different ways. You know, maybe it's a tone of wood or the. The interlocking rings in the Hawaii project. And yes, pulling those themes throughout different spaces, which I. I wonder if you could just talk to that a little bit, because I. I find people ask about that as well, you know, how to make their home feel cohesive and polished in that way, but without necessarily threading the same color palette or the same styles, you know, making them unique but also cohesive at the same time. Are there.
- [30:05]
Marshall Watson
Are there rules and lessons? There are. We do pride our. Ourselves in being. In giving a homo a cohesive, comfortable, livable, peaceful feel to it. And I feel that by. By drawing. By drawing the world together, the drawing the rooms together, having. Having. Not necessarily themes, but having certain materials, certain. Certain paint colors or certain molding colors, certain floor colors that can pull the rooms together and also give you a larger sense of space so that you're not being jolted from one room to the other. So it's very important, the design of the floors, the material of the floors, the material of the walls and the ceilings, and how we handle all of that. Crown moldings, casings, all of those details to keep a cohesive feel. You know, I don't really believe in eclectic. I don't like the word. And I really feel that it's a lazy. A lazy. A lazy man's way of going. I don't mind junk around the room. You Know, because those are the human things that the clients bring in. But our job is to create the dream platform, the dream backgrounds for a family to live in. I think that sometimes, stylistically, you know, in California, we're going to design curtains in a certain way. Like in that project that you were talking about, almost every curtain is sheer because every single room opens onto the pool area and opens onto the vineyards that are beyond. And the feeling of opening these windows and then this very light, fluttery breeze that comes in, you know, that, you know, the air is soaked with a sense of lavender and acacia and all these incredible scents that you want to bring in. So the curtains we will bring. The curtains will have a similarity of feel or at least of tailoring. They can be completely different fabrics, but they may be tailored the same way so that we bring a cohesiveness there. I'm big on doors. I know it's really funny, but I love the doors to be interesting, specific. If we're given a place where we aren't doing any renovation, as you know, we do so much architectural work, our own firm, so we generally have the choice of materials and architectural, interior, architectural as well as exterior. But, for instance, we'll paint the doors. I always feel that the doors should get a special treatment of some sort, Whether in that project, it was these horizontal boards. The doors themselves were actually 8ft tall, and they were only 36 inches wide. So what we did was we built them out of these cerused oak horizontal boards with gaps in between them that actually made them seem actually a little bit less tall and less narrow, but it gave real interest to them both inside and outside. So that unified the space, unified the house together. I also think that a use of floor materials, carpeting, either wall to wall or the project in Connecticut, you'll notice that many of the projects that are. Many of the carpets that are hand woven have a Scandinavian feel to them, because the house had a Scandinavian feel to them. So they're woven in many of the 1950s and 1960s, great Scandinavian styles that we so champion. So there's that inner feeling, but it's subtle from room to room.
- [34:25]
Caroline
Right. Well, I'm sorry. I got myself off track, but the story that I loved was you asking your partner, is this the ugliest thing you've ever seen, or is it the greatest? And I, you know, I do find that that is sort of a.
- [34:41]
Liz
You know, that's my favorite question to ask my team, my design.
- [34:45]
Caroline
Yeah, we ask. We actually run into this all the time when we are Pulling rooms together for our spaces and our collections. Sometimes you're like, this could be terrible, but it could also be great. And do you find that coming up? You know, it's like in your work, but, but. But truly, like, you're pushing the bounds a little bit. And that we do.
- [35:08]
Marshall Watson
We, we in. In our own framework, we are always pushing the bounds. We are always looking to what is. I know it sounds funny. We're always looking to what is newest. You know, I hate to say, but we always look for good quality, too. That's something that's really important to us. But everyone. And every once in a while, you know, I mean, I can't know everything that's happening in the market. And, you know, I am not 16 years old anymore, so I'm interested in all the wonderful things that people in my office bring to me. And when we were doing this project, the client was, you know, she was very adventurous and she wanted something a little more cutting edge for Napa. And she wasn't at all stuffy. She was. She was really. And she had fabulous artwork. So we came upon these lamps at a second, you know, a secondhand shot. And the lamps were, you know, they were like $60 a piece. And. And, you know, we're going to make. On $60, we're going to make, you know, $10. So I didn't care that we. Every once in a while you got to give your client a break. Right? But I looked at. I. I looked at Mercedes. Mercedes when I saw them, and I said, you know, the glaze seems really fabulous to me. The shape is so weird.
- [36:29]
Caroline
Is it like a gourd in a hideous. Yeah.
- [36:33]
Marshall Watson
Ugly. Or is it really fantastic? And we decided that it was fantastic. And actually, once we put a really beautiful and appropriate shade on it, the lamp came alive, which is always true with lamps. And I really do think that you can jump on the diving board a bit with lamps in your homes. You know, you can if you're really timid. Oh, you know, gotta have that 18th century chest, you know. And of course, I love 18th century chest. I have two of them myself. But. But if you really want to do something, you can express yourself. You're more. Your more adventurous side in the lamp itself. But careful of doing the lamp and the lampshade at the same time. Because that's the problem with the Ramada Inn. They try to do both at the same time.
- [37:26]
Caroline
Okay. So if you've got an adventurous base, you gotta be a little more classic and tailored with your shade.
- [37:34]
Marshall Watson
And if you Have a boring base. Go for it with the shade. You know, there's. So, yeah, it's. It's so much fun to do. I mean, because we do work all over the country. It's fun to go down to. To West Palm beach and, and do Dixie highway and see, you know, all of the things that they brought back from the, you know, from the 60s, 70s, and now, of course, the 80s, all this stuff where, you know, people do go there too, you know, to push up daisy. So. So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of things that are. That are. That come available down there that don't everywhere else. Yeah, but of course, there are so many great market. You know, there's so many great shows all over the country in Texas and Massachusetts and, you know, all of them, they're. They're fantastic.
- [38:21]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [38:22]
Marshall Watson
So you find all this weird stuff.
- [38:24]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [38:25]
Marshall Watson
And then there are shops that we go to that we go to the shop because it is weird, because we, you know, but we don't take clients in there because they're gonna think, marshall, what happened to you? Where's the old classic Wonderful man who's defining elegance.
- [38:45]
Liz
But the weird things are the personality. Right?
- [38:47]
Marshall Watson
There you go. There you go.
- [38:50]
Caroline
Yeah. So. Okay, I like this.
- [38:52]
Marshall Watson
A room can't be too perfect. It really can't. It's funny because I learned this in gardening. One of my great heroes is Frank Cabot, and he was the founder of the Garden Conservancy, of which I'm on the board, and I'll push it a little bit. And they have a great program open days, which for only 10 bucks a piece, you can see the greatest gardens in the country created by many individual people, and they're all year round. But Frank Cabot's book is called the Greater Perfection. And, you know, gardening teaches you. It teaches you that perfection is a heart. It'll never happen. It'll never happen. And Mother Nature is never gonna let you. You know, you have that beautiful hedge, and then suddenly, oh, it was made out of box, and now we have a box blight. And so half your hedge goes. And then the deer decide that those peonies really did look good, even though they weren't supposed to. And the night before your. Your garden tour, they eat all the peonies. So, you know, and so gardening has taught me a great humility and. And a great, of course, connection to the earth, but has taught me a lot about decorating as well. That decorating, you know, I can go into a home and And I quote Billy Baldwin all the time because he, you know, I can go and finish it according to what they want to, what they dream and everything that I've helped them along, discover and put together and realize. And then at the end, I just say, okay, it's now your time to come in and mess it up. So go ahead, mess it up, because you got to bring in, you know, the pictures of Aunt Lizzie, you know, you got to bring in, no matter how unfortunate she was, in that really frame. You do that.
- [40:47]
Caroline
You just photograph it for your book before all of those things come in.
- [40:52]
Marshall Watson
But I'm lucky. I'm lucky I put a. You can see there's a lot in. There's a lot in. I do. I do like environments that are calming, you know, peaceful, you know, harmonious, balanced, obviously. You know, I like symmetry, mainly because of the ease. I feel that most. Most people want their homes to be, of course, inspiring and uplifting, but they do want them to be comforting and cohesive and a place where they can let go, let loose, but also inspire them at the same time. So I think that's where the. I mean, and what is elegance about other than comfort and ease and. And inspiration and civility and kindness?
- [41:42]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Marshall Watson
All these wonderful things that. That a beautiful home can give people.
- [41:48]
Caroline
I love that. Well, you know what? We have a decorating dilemma that one of our listeners has. Has sent in, and I'm curious if you could help them answer it. Are you up for it?
- [42:02]
Marshall Watson
I'm. Have you ever known me to say no?
- [42:05]
Caroline
No. That's. That's perfect. That's what we like to hear.
- [42:08]
Marshall Watson
So let's go. I'm hoping. I'm hoping that I'll be skillful enough to answer the question.
- [42:16]
Caroline
All right, so it's from Allison, and she says thanks for all of your work on the podcast and all the amazing advice. Every week. I would like to make a change in our bedroom, but could use advice on paint colors and specifically what to do about our tray ceiling. I don't love the tray ceiling, but it would be expensive to remove, so we are keeping it. I also don't love our current paint color, Sherwin Williams Willow. It sometimes looks purplish to me or. And I don't like the way the tray ceiling is currently painted. The other element that is at play is the small hallway vestibule leading into the bedroom, which we are planning to wallpaper and paint. We selected a moody green wallpaper and plan to paint the trim and ceiling a dark green. I would like the hallway and our bedroom to complement one another. Given the hallway colors, what would you recommend? Would you recommend going dark or light in the bedroom? Should we paint the trim walls and ceiling the same color to make the tray ceiling less noticeable or have contrasting trim? How would you treat the tray ceiling? Will painting the strip of gray around the tray ceiling white to match the ceiling solve all of my problems? The room is northwest facing, if that helps. A few other things I'm looking for in this room are an attractive ceiling fan and a throw for the bed. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear. I've attached photos of my room. The windows you see are the only windows in the room, and the hallway vestibule has no windows. I'm also planning to get a wood and arcane headboard at some point, so feel free to ignore the current one. Thanks for your help, Allison. So, yes, she's got a bed. Her bedroom has three windows, and her. Her bed is sort of pushed up against the window wall, and she's got a tray ceiling. The walls are painted white, but of course, they've treated the underside of, like, the tray as though it's sealing. And so it has this strange sort of, like, break at the. Where the. The ceiling is. And then there's crown molding in the tray. And so it's sort of like. It almost looks like a soffit.
- [44:14]
Marshall Watson
I guess it does look like a soffit. And she doesn't want. I know this sounds crazy. She doesn't want to remove it, does she? Because there's the air conditioning system right in there. That's. That's what it's doing. Blowing directly down on the bed. Okay. Okay, I see that.
- [44:32]
Caroline
So she's thinking that wallpaper in the hallway and, and painting the trim to coordinate, like, sort of this. It's kind of like a deep green, blue, gray, green, blue. And then she's also sort of got this deep teal. So what, what would you do if she's wanting to put that wallpaper in the hallway and then wanting a wallpaper for the bedroom that coordinates back to the hallway, but she's unsure whether to do, like, a dark or a light.
- [45:03]
Marshall Watson
Allison. It feels like the hallway. Actually. I would. I would like. I would personally like the bedroom to feel lighter and brighter. You do have a. You do have a tremendous amount of light in there. And I, I like your choice of the wallpaper. I think with the colors that you're choosing right now. I actually like the, the color of the. The. The. The paint color. Okay, I Feel that the. I. I feel that the soffit is difficult. What bothers me about the soft is that it. That the windows seem to recede behind the soffit. So I'm going to tell you a couple other things. I know you want me to answer directly about the paint colors. May I answer something differently then?
- [45:56]
Caroline
Yes, you may.
- [45:57]
Marshall Watson
The windows. It feels like the windows need to have more presence to them. The bed needs to move further out. I would like it very much if I could put. If I could put curtains on either side of the windows to expand them visually in either side. That would also lessen this sense of depth that's going into the tray ceiling.
- [46:25]
Caroline
Oh, interesting. Smart. Yeah.
- [46:28]
Marshall Watson
And also the window. I think that the windows are nice, but they, but they appear too small on the wall. So the curtains will help you. Of course. I'm not talking about covering up the windows. No, no, no. You're going to put the curtains on either side. I really love the wallpaper and I almost want you to use the wallpaper in the hallway because I think that it's a lot of wallpaper and it's hard to tell the scale of the wallpaper. I think that's probably a 2 inch or 3 inch repeat and it feels very small. If you are going to do a wallpaper in the room, I would do a very large. I would do a much larger print if, if, if I were you.
- [47:13]
Caroline
Well, she said she was going to do the wallpaper in the hallway. So is that so.
- [47:19]
Marshall Watson
I do like the wallpaper in the hallway. I think that would be very. That would be great. And if she wants to make, make it extra dramatic. Yes, certainly she can do. She can use that. She can use the. Either of those paint colors. I tend to prefer the green because I think it's what looks like a dark green. In any case, I prefer that as if you're going to use that as a molding color. But you might also consider that as a ceiling color too and keep the moldings light. I just don't know how much. It's very dramatic to paint all the moldings dark, but at the same time you have to make sure that you have a lot of light in the room coming into the room. The soffit is difficult. I tend to want to create the paint color going all the way up into the soffit so that the soffit disappears. The way you have it right now, it's like this white stripe across the ceiling and it just says. It screams there's a soffit There. Yeah. So either you don't paint the interior of the. Of the. Of the coffer, don't paint it and leave it white, or paint it all the way up and then do the curtains on the sides. But it's a very dark color. I mean, are you sure you want to go that dark in the room?
- [48:48]
Caroline
What color would you suggest if you could pick any color?
- [48:51]
Marshall Watson
Well, I would. I would prefer something. I prefer something paler. Whatever. A calmer version of, you know, whether she wants to use a very, you know, pale terracotta or very pale, pale sage green. She seems to. Allison seems to go for colors of greens, but there's a lot of black in everything.
- [49:18]
Caroline
Okay. So I love. Well, I love your idea about the window treatments, like pulling away, like, filling some of the space in between the walls.
- [49:30]
Marshall Watson
You're giving more architecture to the walls themselves and also spreading the great. The beauty of that room are these really pretty windows. I mean, they're pretty, but they're very high on the wall, too.
- [49:43]
Caroline
Right, right.
- [49:45]
Marshall Watson
So. And they're. They're rather small in terms of the amount of sheetrock that's in the room. So the. The curtains would help. Would help on either side to both lengthen them. Draw your eye up to the. The soffit area. And of course, you're going to mount them right below the soffit.
- [50:02]
Caroline
Okay. That was my next question.
- [50:03]
Marshall Watson
Probably right. To the soffit, too.
- [50:05]
Caroline
And how far. Like. Okay. She would do six panels, correct? So, yeah, two on each.
- [50:13]
Marshall Watson
I would prefer six. Two on each.
- [50:15]
Caroline
And then the ones in the middle, would they meet? Would you have middle.
- [50:20]
Marshall Watson
There's two.
- [50:22]
Caroline
Well, like the.
- [50:23]
Marshall Watson
There's two windows behind the bed, correct?
- [50:26]
Caroline
Yes.
- [50:27]
Marshall Watson
And isn't there enough room for panels on either side of those without doing a single panel?
- [50:33]
Caroline
Yes, yes.
- [50:34]
Marshall Watson
Yes, there are. There definitely is enough room.
- [50:37]
Caroline
So would she.
- [50:37]
Marshall Watson
It's a very pretty room.
- [50:39]
Caroline
Would she cover that entire expanse, though, in. In drapery, or would she live a little sliver?
- [50:43]
Marshall Watson
Don't do that. Okay, well, but then that's a very. That's actually a creative idea, but I don't want to block the. The windows.
- [50:51]
Caroline
Okay.
- [50:51]
Marshall Watson
You know, there's. We came into a. We came into a bedroom exactly like this, where the bed was in front of it. And the. The previous owner had chosen to curtain the entire wall with a sheer. But it felt oppressive, and I think that those windows are quite beautiful.
- [51:10]
Caroline
Would you keep the plantation shutter?
- [51:15]
Marshall Watson
It darkens the room. It depends on if you want to modernize it a little bit more. We do Use. We use translucent roller shades that are not Romans, but they're roller shades that come down and they're made of. They look like grass cloth, very thin cloth, and they're quite chic. But what I do like about the plantations shutters is they give your room architecture in this broad expanse of. But the curtains will help a lot in. In giving definition to the wall. I would say that you're only going to do 14 inch panels on either side of the. Of the wall. 14 inches from the interior edge of the casing molding. That's. That's on the interior edge facing the. The window.
- [52:11]
Caroline
Okay.
- [52:11]
Marshall Watson
Does that make sense?
- [52:12]
Caroline
Yes.
- [52:12]
Liz
Yeah, that's great.
- [52:14]
Caroline
These are. Well, listeners will know that I don't usually like plantations shutters, but these are good looking ones. So.
- [52:21]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, they are good looking also. You know a way to. You can paint the walls now. You can paint the walls any color all the way up to the. To the. All the way up to the crown molding. To the. No, all the way. Yeah, we're all the way up to the real crown molding that's on the inside. And then it's like draw your eye away. Draw your eye up into that space space by maybe placing the same wallpaper that you're using in the hall up in there flat on the ceiling. So think of that ceiling as your fifth wall and that you. You might want to treat that in some interesting way.
- [53:00]
Caroline
That's smart. Okay, so she's gonna. Okay, so in that, in that idea, she would put a paper on the ceiling. She would keep the crown molding white. But then everything below the crown molding.
- [53:10]
Marshall Watson
Including the underside, is the underside of the soffit. So you're continuing the room.
- [53:15]
Caroline
Yes.
- [53:16]
Marshall Watson
And then the curtains should. Because the curtains will bounce out almost 7 inches. And it looks like you have enough room so that. Well, not 7 inches, 4 inches. So. And it looks like by the time you have your headboard there, you still have enough room in the room floor plan because.
- [53:32]
Caroline
So she'll just pull her bed and headboard forward 4 to 5 inches so that anytime she's moving the actual curtain.
- [53:41]
Marshall Watson
She may not move the curtain. She's gonna. She's gonna use the plantation shutters.
- [53:45]
Caroline
Okay. Yeah, but. But it wouldn't, it wouldn't. Like the bed would never touch the curtain.
- [53:51]
Marshall Watson
It's not gonna never.
- [53:52]
Caroline
Okay.
- [53:53]
Marshall Watson
Because you're using those curtains virtually as kind of architectural pilasters almost. Right.
- [53:59]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [53:59]
Marshall Watson
To articulate the architecture of the room and draw your eye up. Because that. She is correct that the Soffit and the, and the tray ceiling shorten the room.
- [54:11]
Caroline
Okay, she did say something. I want to make sure we answer all of her questions. She said something about wanting. Didn't she say something about bedding? Yes, like some, a new ceiling fan, but also a throw or something on the bed to like add something to the bed. Any favorite bedding treatments? Do you, how do you, how do you make a perfect bed, Marshall?
- [54:35]
Marshall Watson
Well, you will have, and, and I'm not selling my book, but you will have, you know, 50 different ways of dealing with beds in my book, of which I think there many are successful. I have beds, I have bedspreads made and literally bedspreads because they're very, they're very light. And then I, I have one side made in one color and the other side made in another color, both so that I can reverse them, but also so that I can pull them back. I do beautiful, beautiful sheets that are embroidered so that I can pull the sheeting material back. That's a king size bed. Is that correct? It looks like a king size bed.
- [55:16]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [55:16]
Marshall Watson
Okay, so on a king size, I stack the pillows. I will do two kings. And on top of the two kings, I use two standard pillows. So pyramid stacking so that first of all it's comfortable. And I usually use shams because they'll spread their shams spread out and there's no problem with sleeping with a sham. What's the problem? And then I use two decorative pillows that are usually at least 22 inches square sitting in front of that so that they help you in terms, I mean, I read in bed, I do all sorts of things besides everything that you're supposed to do in bed. And, and I use those pillows against the headboard as well as, you know, to help me prop up. I don't like, you know, we're. Gone are the days of, you know, there's never a pillow that I met that I didn't like. You need to, you, you need to eliminate the amount of pillows. So that's about all I feel you need. And then at the base of the bed I have my duvet.
- [56:19]
Caroline
Yes.
- [56:20]
Marshall Watson
And I, and I do have an embroidered duvet, usually meaning it has embroidery on it. And I triple fold it at the bottom of the bed, stretch it out. And then usually I have a bench at the end of the bed that I can kick that thing down, you know, in the summertime.
- [56:35]
Caroline
That's smart. I never thought of it for that reason, but I like it.
- [56:37]
Marshall Watson
But what's great about the bed, what's Great about what makes these giant beds more approach. Approachable and prettier is the layers. You know, that's what. Then we're talking, we're going back to the whole beginning of our conversation and what makes a giant room successful, it is the layers. It's many layers that you're adding on.
- [56:57]
Caroline
Yeah.
- [56:57]
Marshall Watson
So, but it doesn't mean that the bed is fussy. It doesn't mean that it's fussy.
- [57:03]
Caroline
Yeah. You okay? I'm trying to describe, I want to describe to you. You just, you talked about the, the elements. So it's almost like you're dividing the, the surface of the bed into three parts. Right. You've got like either your duvet or your throw at the end of the bed. You've got the bedspread in the middle and then you've got the sheeting folded down in the top. So you're.
- [57:24]
Marshall Watson
And you're breaking it up quite far back. Far. And then you have, and in the very back you have your stack of pillows that are stacked horizontally. I hate them when they're, you know, Howard Johnson's does it this way where they're up against standing up. That's old fashioned. Do them flat. They're flat.
- [57:43]
Caroline
And then. So, yeah. So if you're like looking aerially, like if you're looking down the bed, it's divided into halves or thirds. But then if you're looking straight on at the bed, you're. You're dividing it into at least two, if not three, with your, with your pillow stacks. So breaks up like such a large expanse of mattress.
- [58:03]
Marshall Watson
Exactly.
- [58:03]
Caroline
To where if you were just using one surface like she has currently. It looks. Yeah. Like there's not enough.
- [58:11]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, yeah. It looks like you need to land a helicopter.
- [58:14]
Caroline
Yeah. Like it just looks bigger.
- [58:15]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- [58:18]
Caroline
Okay.
- [58:19]
Marshall Watson
So that's what I, I think helps in bedding. And I hate to sell our book, but I mean, I want to sell our book but, but you will see many different bedding treatments that we use and that's one of the most significant successful of making. And it's easy to make the bedspread makes things so easy, especially a light bedspread. And then, then you can live with it in the summer and the winter. I love duvets. I love duvets. But they are, you know, and you can put a bedspread over the duvets, but then you're not, you're not, you're not dividing the bed so well.
- [58:58]
Caroline
Okay. I love that formula. Thirds and two pillow stacks. Generous pillow Stacks.
- [59:06]
Marshall Watson
Yeah.
- [59:07]
Caroline
All right, Allison, you have the secret formula now, so. Yeah.
- [59:10]
Marshall Watson
Thank you, Alison. Thank you for bringing it to us.
- [59:12]
Caroline
Yes.
- [59:13]
Marshall Watson
And it is a. You have beautiful windows. And remember, it's. You always want to emphasize the positive and eliminate the negative and the positive. You have beautiful windows and a really nice, generous master bedroom and a beautiful hall going in there, too. Congratulations.
- [59:30]
Caroline
Yeah, I love the idea of having that sort of dark hallway, but then you have the lighter bedroom at the end, and it's sort of drawing you in there.
- [59:38]
Marshall Watson
It draws you in. It draws you in. Yeah.
- [59:41]
Caroline
Smart.
- [59:41]
Marshall Watson
But you have to make sure you have enough light going in there, because late at night, when you're stumbling in, you have that mahogany chest of drawers on the right hand side. You don't want to land into that, too.
- [59:52]
Caroline
Yeah, Maybe she needs to put some lamps or something or some sconces or something in there.
- [59:56]
Marshall Watson
And I'm kind of concerned about the dark hallway with that very dark piece of furniture. You know, it. It's going to. It's going to be very dark.
- [60:03]
Caroline
Okay.
- [60:03]
Marshall Watson
So she might want to lighten the piece of furniture, too.
- [60:05]
Caroline
Okay, That's a good situation.
- [60:07]
Marshall Watson
And use that piece in the master bedroom.
- [60:09]
Caroline
Okay, Great suggestion. All right, well, Allison, thank you for sending in your question and let us know how it turns out. And Marshall, thank you for joining us again and sharing your lovely book with us. We really enjoyed seeing it.
- [60:25]
Marshall Watson
It's been fantastic. It's called Defining Elegance, if we need to hear it again.
- [60:30]
Caroline
Yes, we do. Tell everyone where they can find you and follow you.
- [60:33]
Marshall Watson
I really had a great time.
- [60:36]
Caroline
Your. Let's see. I believe your Instagram is Marshall Watson, designer.
- [60:41]
Marshall Watson
Marshall Watson designer is my Instagram, my personal Instagram. So I. I basically post almost every day and a little bit about my life, too. And then there's Marshall Watson. Reed Dean Gaines is our company with my wonderful. My wonderful partners. And that is our Instagram handle for Instagram. And we're also on Facebook and we're on YouTube and we have several lectures on YouTube and we're on Pinterest as well.
- [61:13]
Caroline
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.
- [61:14]
Liz
And Marshall, your bedroom and your home is in Veranda this month.
- [61:20]
Marshall Watson
Yeah, we happen to be on the COVID of Veranda this month. I know.
- [61:23]
Caroline
Very exciting.
- [61:23]
Marshall Watson
What a great idea. It's very nice. I know. It has been a really great. And two months ago, we were on the COVID of Ocean Home. And this summer we're going to be in traditional home, and next autumn we're going to be in Hampton's cottages and gardens. And I will be lecturing all throughout the country. So I hope that if any of you are listening, you can follow my schedule and I'll be. I'll be coming to a city near you.
- [61:49]
Caroline
Where would they find that schedule? That is such a great tip.
- [61:51]
Marshall Watson
And I'm sure our audience, it'll be on our. Will be. It'll be on our Instagram, Facebook and our accounts. We'll be putting it on soon. As soon as we've gotten it all. It all scheduled and finalized. Yeah.
- [62:03]
Caroline
All right. Well, defining elegance. Thank you so much.
- [62:06]
Marshall Watson
Thank you.
- [62:07]
Caroline
I loved having you. Yep. That's our show. Yes. Yes, yes.
- [62:10]
Marshall Watson
Bye bye.
- [62:11]
Caroline
Thank you.
- [62:11]
Marshall Watson
Bye bye.
- [62:13]
Caroline
And that's our show. You can find all of the show notes on our blog howtodecorate.com podcast to send in a decorating dilemma. Email your questions to podcastallarddesigns.net so we can help you with your space. And of course, be sure to follow us on social media. Alard Designs.
- [62:28]
Liz
Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear your feedback.
- [62:34]
Caroline
Until next time, happy decorating.