08/13/2012
Bring Napa to Your Home With Tips From Tamera's Interior Designer
We caught up with Tamera's designer Eden Rodriguez to get budget-friendly tips on how to bring the beautiful Napa style into your household—no matter where you live!
Bring the outside in. Napa interiors are all about that indoor-outdoor, casual living feel. The look is very comfortable and relaxed. You can achieve that by contrasting natural, rustic materials, like a woven area rug, with light and airy neutrals, such as ivories, whites, creams and beiges.
Utilize linen fabrics. Linen is very much representative of Napa Valley. If you're on a budget, you can introduce linen slipcovers on your couches. Make sure you do neutral-colored slipcovers because they will go with a palette full of colors.
Go long with drapes. Floor-to-ceiling drapes are a big thing in Napa. Even in a home with 8-feet walls, you want to mount the curtain rod almost to the ceiling height so that you can achieve a very elongated look. First, find the cheapest bare rod design that you love. Don't worry about the color because you can spray it with enamel paint. A very cheap way to do curtaining and not have a seamstress involved is to figure out the height and double the amount of fabric you need (linen and burlap are really inexpensive!). Then, throw it over the rod and turn the edges under. You don't need to install with rings or anything! In Napa, it's popular to do a puddle on the ground with extra fabric. Instead of the fabric just hitting the floor, you have more a relaxed feeling.
Incorporate vintage, rustic accents. Think old wine crates, milk cartons and metal mesh containers or baskets. That's all Napa Valley—very agricultural. Stuff that was used in the wine-making process, ferry industry and apple orchards. Those serviceable items that used to be new years ago are now the mainstay in vintage and pick stores.
Stack old-looking books. Another popular thing in Napa Valley is stacking up old books, whether it's on a coffee table or a mantle. Since old books can be expensive, go to a thrift store and get any kind of old book. I go for size or scale. So, I either get things that are similar sized and some that are oversized. All you have to do is rip off the cover and binding. Et voilà! You've done this deconstructive look. Simply stack them up—or I'll also bind them together with twine or take an old worn leather belt that's very vineyard looking.
Mix metals. Do this with everything from lighting fixtures to fans. Rustic bronze is very masculine. But if you mix in estate silver in little pieces, such as picture frames, then you get touches of elegance. That's the essence of Napa Valley style: masculine and feminine together, but in a livable way. That's what's appealing about this region. You can go into the most beautiful estates where the textiles are expensive, but the furniture is overstuffed and comfortable.
