DECOR : Tone Things Down With New Paint, Less Clutter

Decorating in the ‘90s is following the lead of fashion and dressing down. To make the adjustment, those who succumbed to indulgent decorating in the 1980s are looking for relief.

Changing colors is one of the best methods of toning down any strong decorative theme, whether it’s opulent traditional, country or pastel Southwestern. All can become tiresome, especially when taken too far.

Adding slipcovers, painting and removing accessories and clutter can introduce a new mood. “The remedy is to edit and prune--get rid of the dried flowers and ruffled lampshades,” said decorator and author Teri Seidman of New York.

If a country-style room is mainly pink and blue, add more white, perhaps by painting some furniture. This will provide crispness and tone down the country feeling. Neutral textures, such as a sisal rug in place of a hooked rug, will have a similar effect.

Clients who are no longer happy with their down-on-the-farm furnishings might also replace some print fabrics with solid colors by reupholstering or getting slipcovers. Seidman might also replace all the lampshades with simple parchment or white linen shades. Though seemingly insignificant, lampshades have a big effect.

“If I were working with someone who had gone overboard on log furniture, large terra-cotta pots and stone tables, I might mix in some Jacobean furniture,” said decorator Celeste Cooper, who has offices in Boston and New York.

Pieces in the 17th-Century English style are on the same scale as the log furniture, but they would introduce a different mood, as would African art and textiles, she said.

Although such tinkering can revive a tired room, it can also cause a fatal collision of styles and colors.

“Certain styles are compatible, like country and English or French, but extreme contemporary and country are not usually compatible,” Seidman said.

Adding a Lucite table to a country room would be like bringing a piece of the big city onto the farm--a little too much excitement.

Cooper confronted that problem in a house in suburban Boston where the clients were grafting a new master bedroom wing in Bauhaus modern style onto the back of their postwar American Colonial.

“These clients were 90% through with the renovation when they realized they had a problem,” said Cooper, who was called in to integrate the home’s split personalities.

Dramatic color was her main weapon. In the entry hall where the old and new meet, she dyed the stairway handrail bright red and colored walls and floors in charcoal gray and white. She lacquered the walls red in the den and in the living room cut up carpet remnants in beige and black to resemble an abstract painting by Mondrian.

Cooper also created “art furniture” with paint. A game table now has a checkerboard design. A standard chest was given a new base and treated to a painted “granite” top; the drawers were outlined with black striping.

The piece de resistance is the large china buffet in the dining room. This highly traditional piece with drawers in the base and shelves behind glass above has been painted to look like Anglo-Indian Raj furniture. The “ebony and ivory inlays” are actually just paint.