Room design is by interior designer Denise Davies of D2 Interieurs.
The living room wallpaper is by Robin Sprong, and the armchair fabric is from Rule of Three.
The concrete coffee table is from Lulu and Georgia, while the custom rug is from Palace Rugs.
Bright acrylic side tables from Anthropologie are complemented by palm tree embroidered pillows by Eva Sonaike.
A throw from The Post adds a pop of color to a 1970s leather bench, and the cotton and leather hide rug is from Saddlemans.
On a recent vacation in South Africa, I visited Cape Town and caught up with Connecticut interior designer Denise Davies of D2 Interieurs who shared with me some her favorite design resources. We asked Davies to show us how she infuses a traditional living room in Connecticut with some of her favorite South African finds.
What is your connection to South Africa in terms of design?
I started going to Cape Town about three years ago and fell in love with the city, the country, but most of all the people. Eventually, I bought a home there with my partner. What draws me in every time is the attention to quality and authenticity that goes into the products. The selection of high-quality workmanship in prints, wallpapers, textiles and fabrics is so impressive.
What is it like to work as an interior designer in Cape Town?
Because there really is no formal design district or even a central design center in Cape Town, interior designers source straight to the artisans themselves. Most vendors have retail shops or workrooms. Since it is a very small and tight design community, people are very open, and many of the artists and fabricators are friends and are very willing to collaborate with other artisans. Because most things are custom or made by hand, every piece has a soul and meaning behind it. Working as an interior designer in Cape Town is not without its challenges in that there are a limited number of resources, and shipping things into the country is so expensive, I must be creative with what is available to me.
What are typical color palettes or patterns?
The design aesthetic in Cape Town swings two ways. On one side, you have bold patterns and vibrant colors, inspired by floral or tropical motifs that reflect natural beauty. On the other, there’s a modern, playful flair that gives traditional designs a fresh twist. It’s this blend of tradition and modernity that makes the design scene here so invigorating. The ethnic color palette is a lot of browns, blacks and earthy tones. Even when infusing color, the hues are very saturated and taken from nature. The more modern palettes are more bright colors, prints with white backgrounds, and neutral tones with pops of color. Colors are salmon, kelp and papaya. You don’t see pastels. The materials that are used most are natural fibers—you don’t see a lot of plastics. Patterns are florals, botanicals, wildlife and influenced by nature. Materials are rope, ceramics and wood and, of course, handwoven fabrics.
What was the starting point in the redesign of this living room?
The challenge was to create a better flow in a living room that had two separate seating areas. The space needed to take advantage of the beautiful river scene outdoors. To begin, project manager Cynthia Calamari and I relocated the piano to its own separate area, which enabled us to open up the living space. I always like to start with a bolder color or pattern and later select secondary colors and patterns that have more muted tones.
Our first step was to create a statement on a single wall in the white living room. The client fell in love with a bold South African wallpaper that was an extension of the green riverbed outside. From there, the rest of the room organically evolved.
The client also craved color, but we had to temper that down so that we didn’t detract from the view outdoors. Choosing green as the dominant color was a perfect way to achieve this. Because the client had so many fabulous pieces that she had collected over the years, the room needed to be edited down. She had an amazing Vicente Wolf double-sided sofa, which she had for more than 30 years. We re-covered the sofa in this gorgeous Osborne & Little green velvet.
By replacing the existing glass coffee able with a modern cement one, we were able to ground the room and give it a focal point. We brought in the leather and cotton hide rug, which grounded the piano room beautifully.
A handmade vase by my good friend and artist Dale Etherington, of Darling Dale, and the palm tree embroidered pillows were some of the accessories that gave the space a more modern vibe. Even the flowers that I chose are native to South Africa. In fact, the country’s national flower is the protea, which symbolizes diversity, strength and transformation—it’s also the perfect metaphor for this project.