Custom area rug

Amy and Michael Cohen, the owners of the Allens Lane home, insisted on two very colorful design elements for their living room: a Coca-Cola red sofa and electric blue ceramic tiles around their fireplace. When I attempted to source an area rug that would work well with these existing colors, nothing was quite right. We decided to design the rug ourselves. We were able to find a rug company that would fabricate our own custom design for significantly less than our other less appealing options. This gave us the opportunity to create something completely unique and personal for the
room and the clients.

During this time, we were working on making Baldessari style art pieces for the house using old Cohen family photographs. One of the images we were using was of Michael as a young boy at his pre-school art show. He is standing in front of his own large rectangular painting. Amy and Michael met each other in pre-school; therefore, it made perfect design sense to repeat this image of their wall art in their custom rug. Using a digital computer program, we were able to pull the shapes and drips out of the photograph of Michael’s pre-school painting and use them to create the
custom rug. It was a very intimate moment when we presented this idea to Amy and Michael. Custom designed decorative elements represent a part of the family history– the rug now tells a deeply personal story about the inhabitants of the home. Great design has the ability to create resonance between people and objects.