‘The Smallest Details Make the Biggest Difference’: Zoe Feldman and the Anthology Panel on What Makes a Great Room

Good design can be spoken about in broad brush strokes: an overall style, a color theme, an approach to texture. But good design becomes great design when the details are right.

That was the starting point for the latest Speaking Of…, Anthology’s conversation series, held with Corston during What’s New, What’s Next at New York Design Center. Designer Zoe Feldman joined Sarah Spiteri, David Nicholls and Benjamin Reynaert to talk about the details that make a room: from furniture, texture and color through to the finishes and fittings, and the tiny decisions that can make the biggest difference.

Here’s what we agreed on.

Detail is critical, but easy to ignore

The decorator’s scheme starts with the moodboard, and the first thing a homeowner sees is the bigger picture. That’s fine and understandable, but if a scheme, and its designer’s engagement with it, never gets into every corner, every small detail, then it’s destined to underdeliver, the team agreed.

Concentrating on hero furniture pieces and their placement, or the choices of fabrics and wall colors, is clearly critical, but successful design, and the designer behind it, sweats the small stuff just as hard. That means ensuring the details, from the light fittings to the door handles, the cornicing to even small retail goods such as tableware, are not just in line with the overall design ethos, but are as much a part of it as the bigger items.

Get the details wrong by specifying them independently, or even worse, not really choosing them at all, and the homeowner is left with a design that only delivers at a broad scale. Zoe often includes finishes on her initial moodboard, so a client is on board with her layered approach from the get-go. And color can work in much the same way. Her love of blush pink isn’t necessarily about making it the big color statement, but using it as part of the overall story of the room.

Details Are the Interactive Elements

Architectural detailing is the bit you interact with. You’re touching it, switching it, putting plugs into it, using it to open cupboards and doors, multiple times every single day.

As a result, not only should it look good and feel coherent with your overall scheme, but it should feel good, too. The material finish is as important as the color palette here, which means understanding the difference between polished nickel and antique brass – believe us when we say it matters – and getting that right can give you multiple hits of pleasure every single day.

And that tactility goes beyond hardware. The softness of mohair or velvet, a sofa you actually want to sink into, a surface that gets better rather than worse as it ages: how a room feels is as much a part of the detail as how it looks.

Details Also Mean Layering and Depth

Imagine two schemes. One is a relatively broad scheme, with simple colors and bold furniture choices. The other is the same, but with a palette of fabrics, rugs, cushions, art, decor, hardware and lighting that is an integral part of the overall look.

This layered approach – the ability to provide multiple points of interest within a scheme that, together, add richness – is, of course, entrenched in interior design theory, and detailing is at its heart. When you’re looking at a scheme, regardless of the overall style, depth, layering and detailing are the elements that will make it come to life and provide the feeling of completeness any good design should be able to deliver.

But layering doesn’t mean everything needs to be perfect. Zoe likes the tension between old and new, and pieces that feel a little idiosyncratic or imperfect. A room doesn’t need everything in it to be beautiful.

And there is a point at which enough is enough. Knowing what should lead, what should recede and, crucially, when to stop is just as important as knowing what to add.

Choosing the Client Is Key

Most designers are working with no more than two handfuls of clients each year, and many with a lot less. The successful delivery of a great design depends on you as the designer, of course, but also on a strong working relationship with the client.

And as you’ll realize, detailing is the difference between good and great design, so your client must realize that, too. Talk closely with them about your aesthetic from the start, and try to find alignment on two fronts: the overall vision, of course, but also the overall approach to the design. Will they follow it through? Will they commit to the investment in time that you’ll be making to build a layered design? Or do they just want some help choosing furniture?

Ensuring a client is invested in the same things that you are is much more important than ensuring you agree on and love all the same things. A bit of creative energy should always go into the space between you and your client’s tastes. And ultimately, these are rooms that have to be lived in. A little wear, a scuffed floor, a stained counter or something sentimental isn’t necessarily the enemy of good design.

There’s an Explosion of Choice When It Comes to Details

Twenty years ago, there wasn’t a lot to talk about when it came to design details. They were largely overlooked by designers, and the choices were limited by manufacturing and technology. The globalization of the design industry, coupled with huge amounts of technical innovation, has meant detailing is a much more intensive, engaging and interesting process than it was.

In other words, it’s way better for designers, and a new area to ensure you’re on top of.

Lighting is a good example of this. Portable lighting has enabled designers, and homeowners, to flex their approach in ways unimaginable even five years ago. It can create flexibility in scenes, but also, thanks to lampshade designs, offers an additional detailing note. It can look great on bars or coffee tables and is now an easy choice, rather than requiring an electrician.

It’s the same story across the world of design detailing. The key as a designer is to make sure you’re on top of it, and to spend as much time thinking about the small finishes as you do about the big picture.