A family from California loved their Tudor-style residence in the Westchester city of Scarsdale. “It was full of character and had been beautifully kept but needed updating and furnishing,” remembers New York designer Sharon Rembaum. In the family room, where the owners and their small children spend ample time watching television and playing video games together, there wasn’t much natural light, but “believe it or not, making a space dark can often make it feel bigger,” says Rembaum, who chose a brooding palette from her variety of den design ideas. This room presented a particular challenge: Its odd shape required sourcing swivel chairs and a sofa angled in a precise way to accommodate watching television on the opposite wall.
Olivia Song Design
During lockdown, Brooklyn designer Olivia Song revisited the details of a classic Park Avenue co-op repeatedly, ultimately marrying “traditional architecture with contemporary interior design for a young family with three children. The parameters of success: no childproofing, and the furnishings would stay in place, as they were, until the owners leave ‘feet first,’” she shares. This encompasses an alluring space that her own kids dub a “shade room.” By embracing ambient lighting “that reduces visual stimulus and removes the frenetic energy of the outside world,” she points out, Song strived to create a salon that induces recovery and relaxation at every turn. “Whatever the time spent, this atmosphere lends itself to physical and mental calm,” says Song. “When you leave, you feel recharged and ready to be back in the light—in bright rooms with other people.”
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