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The furnace just kicked on, raindrops patter against the windows and you’re hunkered under a blanket with a cup of tea. As Seattle creeps closer to The Big Dark, it’s harder to muster enthusiasm for getting out in nature.
“It’s that time of year, you just want to be cozy and warm, but still have the nature around you — in a cozy, warm way, rather than a wet, tortuous way,” says interior designer Cami Peloza, owner of Remix Design Co. in West Seattle.
You can bring nature inside in a literal way, with a spray of fall leaves, a collection of beach pebbles pounded smooth by the waves. Or evoke a sense of nature through organic materials, textures and patterns.
According to Peloza, there’s even a fancy word for nature-inspired design: biomimicry. Incorporating nature into your home gives you a connection to the outside world — while you stay dry.
More perks: real plants can help detoxify the air inside. The colors of nature, blues and greens, can bring a sense of calm and peace.
“People are really focused on wellness these days, as they should be,” says Meghan Price, creative director and founder of Maple & Plum in Ballard. “We want our homes to be healthy. Bringing nature in, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”
Easy DIY ideas
When Peloza has company over, she rarely buys a bouquet of flowers for the table. Instead, she’ll go to her yard, clip a maple branch and set it in a vase with water.
“Fall is a great time to bring the outdoors in because if you just walk around in your backyard, there’s lots of things you can find,” Peloza says.
Set cuttings in water so they’ll root — Peloza’s had the most success with coleus and sweet potato vines. Or pick flowers that will dry beautifully, like hydrangea and strawflowers. You can press autumn leaves, or collect pine cones to make arrangements.
At a client’s beach home, Heather Pollock Sehulster grabbed beach rocks and shells, and mixed in some candles to dress a table. Driftwood is another great beach find. Add a couple of air plants to a gorgeous piece of driftwood and you have a ready-made tablescape.
“I always find things in the environment,” says Sehulster, owner and curator of Conservatory Coastal Home in Port Townsend and on Bainbridge Island.
For a Palm Springs, Calif., project, she incorporated tumbleweed. In a mountain cabin, she decorated with pine springs and moss. Sehulster encourages people to use what’s on hand, because it’s beautiful and budget friendly.
“People are intimidated by interior design. How much is that going to cost?” Sehulster says. “We could buy this, this and this. We could also go gather this, this and this.”
(For the record, Pottery Barn sells sand.)
Sehulster lives on Bainbridge, in a 700-square-foot beach cottage. When she hosted a party for 16, she stepped outside, gathered white oyster shells and used them to serve chocolate pots de crème.
“It was charming,” Sehulster says. “But it was also the solution for not having enough plates.”
Using found objects from nature
Design challenge: create separation between the bed and the rest of a forest cabin without blocking the light. Price’s answer: birch trees sourced from the property, cut and dried out to create a divider.
Price took a cabin in the middle of the woods and gave it a major glow-up, taking it from hunting cabin to cozy weekend getaway.
“It was really rustic. It was not very comfortable,” Price says. “The wife wanted this to become more of a retreat instead of ‘hunting with the boys.’”
The antlers on the wall were a hunting trophy from the husband, which she spray painted white.
Elements from nature can also be used as an easy way to refresh seasonal décor, changing the look of a home without spending a ton of money.
To create a unique wall art piece, Peloza found a tray at an antique shop and packed it with mosses and dried hydrangea. For fall, she tweaked the look by adding acorns and strawflowers.
In summer, Sehulster sets shells in containers filled with sand. Come fall, fill the same containers with acorns, then swap for pine cones and biodegradable faux snow around the holidays. And in the spring, opt for greens with moss and flowers.
“To decorate your house, seasonal arrangements are a wonderful way to change your interior décor,” Sehulster says. “You can walk steps outside your door in the Northwest because we have the privilege of having beaches. We’re surrounded by mountains.”
Fool the eye with fakes
How do you bring nature in when you live in the city? One of Peloza’s clients was a bachelor in a Bellevue condo whose interests leaned more toward “Dungeons and Dragons” rather than keeping plants alive.
The balcony overlooked Downtown Park, so Peloza played off the view with a green rug echoing the circular lawn. For a corner with no light, she added a faux tree (from Home Depot), fluffed out and “planted” in a pot topped with moss. The bouquet on his dining table? It’s from Etsy and made of crepe paper. No care needed.
“There are so many bad fakes out there that people are turned off on faux-anything,” Peloza says. “But if you look in the right places, there are good ones too.”
Take her recipe for a console table arrangement: Start with a trough from Restoration Hardware, add moss and top with sola wood succulents from Etsy. Done.
“The succulents, they’re not necessarily going to mistake them for real,” Peloza says. “They’re beautiful little sculptures in their own right.”
In her own home, Peloza took a standing candle holder, sawed off the scrolled feet and spray-painted it white. It’s now a gorgeous wall piece filled with air plants … and half of the plants are fake. In a shower niche, she styled the upper two shelves with greenery and sprigs of flowers. The flowers and the air plant are real, the other stuff not so much.
“I mix real with fake, which sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it does,” Peloza says. “It makes the fake stuff more believable.”
Nature-inspired design
If budget isn’t an issue, the best way to welcome nature is with floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights. But say, you don’t have a bottomless bank account. Get yourself a great landscape painting from a local artist.
“You’re supporting local, and it doesn’t have to be that much,” Price says.
When Price designed a living area for a houseboat on South Lake Union, she didn’t just pick a picture of a ship. Instead, the artwork she chose is an abstract close-up of the outside of a boat. Given the setting, it makes sense that the artwork, rug and pillows are all reminiscent of water.
“This all kind of tied together on this super modern houseboat,” Price says. “I love being inspired by nature, but not taking it so literally. You give a little nod to what’s happening around you.”
In a classic 100-year-old Craftsman in Mount Baker, Price wrapped the dining room in botanical wallpaper from Morris & Co. (Look familiar? It’s the same wallpaper in Eleanor Young’s house in “Crazy Rich Asians.”) The ceiling is painted in a pale green pulled from the wallpaper.
The result: You feel like you’re standing in an English garden.
For a young couple in Briarcrest, Price set up a bar area for hosting next to the living room. The statement wall is a showstopper wood veneer wallpaper made of super, super thin layers of wood.
“It’s wood wallpaper and it’s absolutely stunning,” Price says. “You can see the depth of movement because the light is catching the grain.”
Design inspired by nature can be a splurge, and it can also be something very small. On a bedroom shelf, Peloza set up a vignette with a candle holder topped with a pinecone, an antique wooden stamp and a hyacinth sculpture made of iron.
“You don’t always have to feel like you’re trying to trick people,” Peloza says. “Sometimes, it’s clearly a sculpture. But you still achieve the effect of bringing nature in, whether it’s a real plant, a faux plant, a piece of art. All (are) valid ways to bring nature in.”
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