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How to Decorate

Ep. 167: Nashville Week: Stephanie Sabbe

How to Decorate

Ballard Designs

Arts, Business, Design

4.2785 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2020

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s episode comes to you from Nashville Week! We sit down with Stephanie Sabbe of Sabbe Interior Design. She started her career working in commercial and restaurant spaces and has transitioned to residential clients in her hometown of Nashville. We talk with Stephanie about how cozy her spaces make us feel, her love of traditional artwork, her favorite color palette and developing a flow to a room that feels personalized yet elevated! What You’ll Hear on This Episode: Stephanie specializes in cozy and comforting spaces. She approaches design from a livable way and often works with families. How Stephanie pairs her unique curation of traditional artwork with fresh colors and clean lines to create a more modern look. Stephanie tries to evoke motion as you move throughout a house; she wants a flow but for each room to feel like it’s a different space. If there is a space in your house you aren’t using, you need to design it better. Designing with kids in mind requires a great deal of practicality and thinking ahead. A lot of Stephanie’s style was inspired from her time living and working in historic Boston. Stephanie has an affinity for the autumn and earth tone color palette and often muted colors. Stephanie talks about her widely shared image of a bookcase behind a tub. Fun and personality are so important to Stephanie’s brand and her projects. Second to natural light, Stephanie thinks sconce lighting is the best lighting. Stephanie tried an old but new trick; painting the trim the same color as the wall. Tips on designing the “dog chair”. Mentioned In This Episode: Stephanie Sabbe on Instagram Sabbe Interior Design Decorating Dilemma Hi Julie! We love this sofa. As far as furniture layout, we would pull the two wingback chairs back closer to the fireplace and flank them on either side. If you use the storage below the glass shelving often, you could probably angle the chairs in a way so you can still have access. You could definitely add a second sofa; something smaller like a loveseat. Just be sure to consider back height and arm height on the sofa to make sure one doesn’t dwarf the other. Since you already have so many solids, we would try something fun like a bold pattern to make that second piece pop. We like the grey upholstery on the wingbacks and adding a patterned throw pillow. The shelves are hard because of their differences; we like your lamp idea. Another thing we would suggest is taking the art over the fireplace and replacing it with a mirror since you already have artwork over the sofa. You might also consider painting the space; definitely the ceiling coffers. We like creamy white for the whole room. The fireplace has a lot of elements going on and we think if the room were all the same color, it would unify it. __________________________________________________________________________ How about a rug to ground the seating area? It’s not entirely clear from the pictures, but what if you centered the sofa with the fireplace? You may have to move the piano to the other wall because it feels a bit lopsided having everything on one side of the room. Stephanie agrees with moving the piano and then putting the bookcases behind the piano. Then centering the art and adding two side tables, two table lamps will make that wall feel more symmetrical. If you move the piano and wingback chairs, you have room to put additional chairs in there, as well, to accommodate all the people. You have a great space and a great start; especially for only 7 months living there! Keep us posted!

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.

0:31.0

Yes, we love answering them. And now, on with the show. It is day two of Nashville week and we're so excited. I've been following today's

0:38.7

guest on Instagram for many years. Her name is Stephanie Sabi of Sabi Interior Design. And she

0:43.7

started her interior design career in commercial spaces working with hotels and restaurants,

0:48.0

then did some time in the northeast in Boston where you were working in residential spaces and now you finally landed in Nashville

0:56.1

and I have to tell you there's something about your rooms that just feels so cozy. I want to

1:01.0

curl up with a book and it's funny to me because it's not as though you're using

1:06.7

traditional elements that one would think of as cozy. They aren't dark. They're actually

1:13.1

quite light and bright. But that overall feeling of coziness is sort of the main takeaway

1:19.5

for me. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? That's the nicest compliment. Yeah,

1:23.7

I feel like if spaces feel cozy and that people want to stay in them, that's exactly what I'm going for.

1:32.1

So that's like the best compliment.

1:34.1

Thank you.

1:34.5

Yeah, for some reason, I wrote down the word very comforting.

1:38.3

I mean, immediately, I was that I was looking for me.

...

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