Palmer Weiss is an interior designer who was born and raised in South Carolina, studied History of Art and Architecture at Brown University in Rhode Island, has an MBA from Northwestern University, and has lived in Northern California for more than 25 years. Her San Francisco-based firm produces layered interiors around the country, from California, to Texas, Florida, and beyond. Read on for a Q&A with the designer.
How would you describe your design style?
I would like to think I combine classic elegance with modern sensibility and functionality. I want a home to feel inviting and warm, yet sophisticated and timeless. Layering is incredibly important to me as a way to avoid an overly decorated look. I love to layer colors, textures, patterns, time periods, and genres to create a unique home for my clients.
How do your Southern roots shape your aesthetic?
I think even more specifically, growing up in Charleston influenced my aesthetic. I had the unbelievably good fortune to have one of the world’s most beautiful cities as my playground at a young age. Riding my bike past the most exquisite examples of Federal, Georgian, and Greek Revival architecture everyday on my way to school was worth more than the education I received once there. The exquisite colors of the lowcountry and quality of southern light are ingrained in my aesthetic ethos for life—and I always draw upon that inner visual knowledge when designing.
Do you have a formula for designing a space?
I do not! I would probably be a lot more efficient if I did, but so much of it comes from the gut for me. Try as I might, I can’t even determine which rooms I will design first, as some just come to me immediately regardless of their pecking order in the home. That said, I obviously have a process by which I approach the overall house and convey a vision to the client. We are very methodical in our dedication to floor plans and budgets, which are solidified at the outset of all creative endeavors. If you don’t know what furniture is populating a space and for how much, it is fairly hard to do much creatively.
How do you select a wallpaper?
It is tough because there are so many fabulous ones! So for starters, I do not typically shop wallpapers and fabrics specifically for projects. Rather, I constantly shop and look out for things I love and add them to our library. Then when I begin a project, I “shop” our library. I am naturally drawn to more classic designs, but often with more modern touches in colors or updated pattern takes.
How do you ensure a timeless wallpaper selection?
Florals, toiles, petite prints, and even certain geometrics will always be in style and can feel fresh with unusual color combinations. Avoiding more trendy or kitschy designs, such as abstracts, can lessen your risk of dating your design. When in doubt, sticking with the tried-and-true vanguard of old-world wallpaper houses such as Pierre Frey, Clarence House, or Cole and Sons can always mitigate your trend risk.
Do you have any tips for combining prints, colors, and patterns?
One approach is to pick a hero fabric that you love with multiple colors in it and try to riff on some of the secondary and tertiary colors in it with the additional fabrics. A few ideas here:
- Play with scale and pattern type: If your hero is a large floral with multiple colors, use a small-scale floral or geometric with only one of two of the colors in it.
- Play with tone: If your hero fabric has robin’s egg blue in the pattern, consider a solid or textured blue fabric in a deeper hue.
- Play with inverting ground color: If your hero fabric has a cream ground, use patterns that have a saturated ground or vice-versa.
- When all else fails, throw some fabrics on the floor together and squint your eyes. If you like what you see, it is likely it will work in execution!
How does a project’s locale inspire the final design?
It is not the locale in terms of the part of the country or state as much as the use case for the house and, of course, the homeowner’s personality. A mountain home that will host after-ski parties, dogs lounging on furniture, and loads of friends has many of the same design requirements regardless of whether it is located in North Carolina or the Swiss Alps. All will want deep and generous seating covered in cozy and durable fabrics, plenty of flexibility in dining arrangements, and possibly summer and winter flexibility in bedding and other linens. How much pattern and how traditional versus modern is determined by the clients’ personal tastes and preferences.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
From a design perspective, I get inspiration from all the usual suspects: Instagram, travel, nature. That said, at this stage of my career, true inspiration is about trying to find a way to be better everyday—in terms of process, effort, results for clients, or just raising the bar for ourselves creatively. To that end, I often turn to inspirational people. I am a huge sports fan and athletes who have been at the top of their game for decades, like Steph Curry, who still bring joy and excellence to their game are very inspirational to me.
East Coast or West Coast?
That is an impossible question… My goal is both!
Favorite travel destinations?
Paris, London, Rajasthan, and Charleston.
