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How to Decorate

Ep. 166: Nashville Week: Laura Thurman

How to Decorate

Ballard Designs

Arts, Business, Design

4.2785 Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s episode, we sit down with interior design expert Laura Thurman of Thurman Design Studio based in Nashville, Tennessee. We chat about how to handle bold, fall colors as well as having pieces of furniture in your living space that create a splash. We also discuss how to balance decor pieces that you may have picked up from different parts of the world with decor pieces that you already have. What You’ll Hear on This Episode: Laura’s take on the “modern” style and what it means to her. How important it is to educate clients on the design process, because most of the time, inspiration comes from education. How to not be afraid of bold, non-traditionally neutral colors and how to incorporate them into your fall decor. How Laura takes an outdated house and gives it a much more modern approach without tons of major renovations. How to utilize gallery walls in your space, and what goes into creating a good one! How your personality and interests should shine through when it comes to the design of your house, just like in Laura’s Cherokee Soul project. Design tips for when you have a bold-coloured piece of furniture. The importance of balancing new and older or collected decor pieces to keep a modern feel to your space. How to have a balance of scale and not have your space feel too cluttered while allowing your eyes to rest in certain areas. The three design elements that can spruce up a neutral color palette in a space. The importance of designing a fabulous powder room. How to decorate a foyer and give some advice on how to incorporate patterns, coffee tables, and faux plants! Mentioned In This Episode: Thurman Design Studio Laura Thurman on Instagram Laura Thurman on Facebook Laura Thurman on Pinterest Decorating Dilemma Laura thinks you should paint the whole foyer! Because the walls are faceted, painting just one wall doesn’t seem practical, so go big or go home! When it comes to the rug, Laura thinks a big, round, patterned rug would be best because it would take up more floor space.You should also put the Wedgewood gray on the ceiling and stick to navy on the walls. Laura also doesn’t think the arches should be the same color as the foyer, especially if the arches are introducing a room that is a different color. For having two young kids, we’re all very impressed with how tidy your space is! Keep playing with some more patterns since your sofa and pillows are pretty solid, we recommend swapping out the solid pillows for some patterned ones. We also noticed you don’t have a coffee table and have two square ottomans instead, but we think a bigger, round ottoman would complement your space very well. You should also consider painting the mantle navy blue or a deep green! Some drapes in the dining area would help make everything look a little more cohesive. Some greenery or faux plants would also make your home feel more lived-in and can bring life to a space.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home.

0:07.7

Each week, they'll help you unleash your inner decorator.

0:10.6

I'm Caroline. I write the How to Decorate blog.

0:12.7

And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer.

0:14.6

And I'm Karen. I head up Ballard's branding team.

0:17.0

We're your host. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from

0:21.4

interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer a listener

0:26.4

question at the end of the show. So don't forget to send them to podcast at ballarddesigns.net.

0:30.9

I guess we love answering them. And now on with the show. Okay, so I am so pumped because we have been talking about doing this for a very long time.

0:41.1

As many of you maybe are recently aware, we are opening a store this week in Nashville.

0:48.5

And to celebrate, we have a new episode every single day this week, five episodes. We're very excited, a lot of

0:57.9

talking. But each day, we're going to have a different Nashville designer on the show. And our very

1:03.5

first one is Laura Thurman of Thurman Design Studio. She's based in Nashville, obviously. And you're known for your global aesthetic,

1:14.4

but through a modern lens. And I wanted to, that was something that, you know, you kind of have

1:20.2

on your website, but it was really kind of kicking around for me while I was looking through your

1:25.1

work because that word, modern, is something that we talk about a lot.

1:30.6

But I feel like every designer probably has a slightly different interpretation of what they see as being modern.

1:37.6

And so I thought maybe that would be a good place to start.

1:39.6

What do you see as that modern lens that you talk about, you know, all of your client spaces sort of being

1:46.9

filtered through. And how does that, you know, sort of dovetail with the global aesthetic that

1:54.1

you really love and that you bring from your background in L.A. Yeah, I think you hit the nail

1:58.3

on the head. When you say modern, that means a lot of different things to different people, depending on where you're from. But I think having my LA roots, modern for me, is just sort of the cleaner lines and maybe a slightly more relaxed modern aesthetic, not the super kind of spacey or really like ultra-ultra-mod. I think it's more of an

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