Highlights from the Toronto Interior Design Show

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at the Interior Design Show in downtown Toronto. The exhibition hall was packed with people and filled with inspiration. 

Here are just a few pictorial highlights and my notes on design trends at the show.

Trend ideas in this picture: Ground level marble coffee tables, legless sofa and a book case with shelves organized in an irregular pattern. The shelves are filled either with spare accessories or stuffed full of books that have had their covers removed. (Should defacing books be a fashion forward idea? What do you think of those low tables? Are they really practical?)

Trend idea: Over sized arrangements. 

(Did you notice the vase within a vase that holds the flowers and foliage in place? Clever!)

Trend ideas: Black and white accessories, blond wood, whitewashed floors, chrome and glass.

Love this statement making chandelier!

Bedroom ideas: Greige linens, distressed wood, collection of small mirrors.

Inspired by WWII aircraft this chest of drawers in the UP Country's display have a romantic, 

vintage feel.

Accessory trend ideas: Collections of vintage globes, vintage trophies, worn books and antlers.

Trend ideas: This industrial chic look mixes metal cabinets, distressed leather furnishings, romantic mercury glass chandeliers and contemporary styled armchairs with clean wooden arms. All from Elte in Toronto.

Trend ideas: Over sized wall clock, graphic black and white artwork, rough wooden headboard

and a distressed chest of drawers. All from Elte in Toronto.

Trend ideas: Charcoal wall color, rough wood surfaces, metal legs and chairs, amber colored glass chandelier, silhouettes and high gloss decorative plates. All from Elte in Toronto.

All from Elte in Toronto.

Kitchen trends: High gloss kitchen cabinets, dark grout on backsplash tiles, clean walls without upper kitchen cabinetry

(What do you think of the fashion for using dark tile grout in kitchens and baths? I think that this is one trend that will date itself quickly. The dark grout may be practical, but it has a way of making even a simple white backsplash look busy.)

Color trend: Tangerine and lime colored accents

Alfred Sung Outdoor Decor 

Outdoor furniture trend: Woven faux rattan, metal legs, and sculptural, over-sized floral arrangement.

Trend: Zigzag patterns, orange terry pillows

House and Home magazine has a video clip of a few other show highlights. 

See it here: House and Home Online.

Creating a Focal Point, Part 2

The beginning and end of this traditional allee is a classic urn. This focal point is accentuated with a circle of stonework. Brian Folmer's Garden near Walkerton, On.

How would a focal point work in the context of a smaller garden? 

Here are some design tips I picked up from gardens that I have visited.

Heather Bradley's Garden, Mississauga, ON.

Guide traffic in the direction of a main garden feature by using a series of pathways.

Heather Bradley's Garden, Mississauga, ON.

This pathway leads you to the birdbath, and then circles around it, allowing you to view 

the planting bed from all sides.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

Group collections of smaller objects.

In this pretty border, there is no focal point; nothing really demands your attention more than anything else. There are instead, multiple points of interest, that tend to draw you in.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

 Look closely, there are little bunnies to be discovered amongst the flowers.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

Now, if the gardener had continued with the bunnies in the flowerbed opposite, the rabbits might easily have gone from a cute detail to over-the-top. Instead, she wisely put a single focal point in the planting bed across from the one with all the bunny rabbits.

Private Garden near Hamilton ON.

If your garden is really small, keep it simple. This garden has one main feature: the pond. Located right off the back deck, it is in the perfect spot for the homeowners to relax in the evening.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

Let the garden suggest a theme for your focal point. In this small garden, the 

pond is again the main feature. 

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

What would be a more natural focal point than a pair of cranes?

Edwards Gardens, Toronto.

Focal points don't have to be traditional.

The Singer Garden, Brampton, ON.

They can be rustic as well.

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

Private Garden, Mississauga, ON.

 Make use of color and the plants themselves. Your eye goes right to the burgundy leaves of this Japanese Maple. Surrounded by a sea of green, the tree fixes and holds your attention.

Leave the beige inside the house. Instead go bold with color. Your garden can handle it!

Emphasis a focal point with contrast. Your eye is immediately drawn to the stone figure which stands out against the mass of dark green leaves. 

Finally, channel attention toward a pretty feature by creating a frame for it.

These design ideas are just a few of the things that I have learned from other gardeners.

Creating a Focal Point

The shrub rose 'Palmengarten Frankfurt' at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, ON.

The senses are bombarded with information in a garden.

Hollyhocks in the RBG, Hamilton, ON.

There are visual cues like color... 

The Rockery at the RBG in Hamilton, ON.

and shape. 

The climbing rose 'American Pillar' at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, ON.

There is also scent, ...

A bee on a fall aster 

sound and...

Moss covered rocks and fern, The Rockery at the RBG in Hamilton, ON.

 the tactile cues of provided by texture. 

When on top of all that information, a gardener mixes in a some garden gnomes, a few birdhouses, and/or a statue or two, a mild disquiet can start to creep in to the mind of the observer. When assaulted with too much information, what the mind wants most is an escape route.

A late fall bouquet of store bought roses in my favourite watering can.

I don't know about you, but when it comes to garden clutter, I really have to retrain myself. I love watering cans, birdhouses, fairies, mushrooms...gosh, what don't I like...well, maybe I can give plastic looking garden gnomes a miss, but you get my point; I love all manner of garden ornaments.

I don't believe you should feel that you have to rigidly adhere to design rules with regard to garden ornaments. It's your garden. Please yourself first! Heck, if you fill your garden with plastic garden gnomes, I say, go for it! Life is too short to worry about other people's opinions. 

But if you look around your garden and feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction, understanding design principals can help you identify what is and isn't working and then help you to correct it.

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

This finally brings me around to the subject of today's post: focal point. 

Focal point is one of those designer terms that you hear tossed around frequently. Commons sense suggests that it is a point of focus; something whose dramatic presence demands or fixes your attention on it. In a garden, using a focal point can also take away from that feeling of visual clutter by centring your attention for a time on a single point of interest.

The picture above is a classic example of using focal point in a garden. The eye rockets along the lines of perspective created by a walkway flanked with two parallel rows of ornamental grass. Your point of focus is a single object, the gazebo in the far distance. Curiosity about that distant structure drives you forward, along the path to get a closer look.

Let's look back the other way. Again, there is a single focal point. 

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

What is that distant object anyway?

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

I see now. It's an urn.

Fixing your line of sight on a garden focal point is like finding a stepping stone in the center of a stream you are trying to cross. It's a place to rest, to catch your breath, adjust your balance and then move on.

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

Take a look at this garden scene. The bench is not only a literal place to rest, it is an object for the eye to rest on as well.

Lose the bench through the magic of Photoshop, and your eye starts darting all over the place. It is like a sentence without a period. The visual information provided by the mixed planting suddenly seems vaguely overwhelming. 

Brain Folmer's garden near Walkerton, ON.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. This is all well and good Jennifer, but I don't have acres of garden to work with in creating a focal point. Fair enough! I don't have vast acreage either.

In Part 2, I will show you some inspiration for creating a focal point in a smaller garden.