How to Design an Entire Room Based on One Item

Sometimes, when I'm at a design store, or shopping on a design website, I fall in love with something. It could be a frame, vase, lamp, basket, rug, pillow, you name it. I immediately want to incorporate it into my home, often by using it as a "jumping-off point" to design an entire space. These jumping-off points are a fun and easy way to design a room, especially if you are stumped.

Here is a piece that I recently found and instantly fell in love with:

Find it at: One Kings Lane.

I love that there are a ton of colors to choose from, and they are not too overwhelming.  Orange is one of my favorite colors, so that is what immediately drew me to it. If you look closer, there is pink, jade, mint, yellow, gold, navy blue, and a lighter orange.

Now comes the fun part - turning this jar into an entire room! Remember not to stress about matching everything perfectly. If you are too careful, it will show, and could even look like you bought everything at the same store. If you do it right, the different shades will actually make the room look more pleasing and comfortable.

First thing I would do is take your item to the fabric store. It will help you visualize how the patterns, colors, and textures will work with each other. Have the style of the inspiration piece in the back of your mind while searching for fabric. My piece is more traditional, so I'll start there, but add a few modern fabrics and textures to balance out the look. Fabric is the hardest design element to find, so do it first. Here are a few fabrics that I chose to go with this vase/jar:

After the fabric is done, I can concentrate on easier things. Remember, big furniture should stay neutral, but you can add accent pieces to tie the look together. Remember to mix styles and colors, but refer back to your jumping-off point. The following pieces do not match exactly, but will all tie together with the jar:

Now comes my favorite part: accessories. Use your inspiration piece as a jumping-off point here as well. My jar is traditional in style, so I will start with that in mind. Try not to go all in one direction with your accessories, though. Mix it up. Here, I could easily just pick all Asian-inspired pieces because of the style of my inspiration piece, but remember that it is important to mix styles to create an appealing look. Mixing styles can also save you money in the long run, because if you tire of one style you don't have to start from scratch to change it. With these accessories, I stuck with mostly traditional, with a healthy serving of modern pieces, and plenty of natural texture to ground the design.


These are the accessories I chose:

 I did this mock-up for a living room, but this can easily be changed into a bedroom:

Or even an office:

After all of these elements come together, you can choose the paint color. I focus on paint last because it can be matched to anything. As a guide, look at your jumping-off point. Usually your safest choice is the second most prominent color. On my jar, the main color is white, and the secondary color is a light jade. Light jade paint would compliment all of the chosen elements well and tie everything together. However, since there is a lot of color already going on with this scheme, I would personally choose a neutral shade like this pearl white:

If you are more adventurous, or just do not like white-ish shades of paint, here are some equally great paint choices for this room:

You're done! It is as easy as that. An entire space from one little jar (or pillow, or lamp, or vase, or whatever you find to be your jumping-off point). Now you can finally figure out what to do with that pesky unfinished room that had you stumped and make it your own. I hope you enjoy the adventure of designing your next space with this as your road map. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

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