So Your Style Is: The Doctor Is In

It’s not that people enjoy reminders of the optometrist’s or doctor’s office, but salvaged medical equipment and symbols can give a room a strong dose of industrial style. These items tend to be streamlined, utilitarian and sturdy. Plus, they spark recognition and surprise when they are spotted in an unexpected place.

You’ll love it if: Your taste runs more toward industrial loft than coastal cottage, or if you like the jolt that contrasts give an interior (such as an all-business eye chart imprinted on a plush area rug). And if you believe the old adage, “Every room should contain something to make your smile,” you can apply it using hospital cabinets that hold decorative objects or skeletons that come out of the closet and into the living areas.

Style Secret: Utilize the Power of Symbols

Most medical symbols are direct, clear and understood around the world. For example, the red cross was developed to allow wounded soldiers to quickly identify medical workers.

In wartime it has the meaning of help and neutrality. The American Red Cross adopted the symbol as its own, and in the U.S. it conveys a message of assistance and safety to all who see it. In the bathroom here, by By Any Design, it has a similar but less urgent meaning. Anyone who sees it knows that the comfort of aspirin probably lies inside.


Something different: You don’t need to commit to bright red to get the look; many accessories bear the bold symbol in more muted colors — including this gray and white pillow in an interior by Jennifer Grey Interiors.


Style Secret: Medical Charts

This interior has pillows with a red cross and an equally familiar eye chart. Anything you’d find in a doctor’s office is fair game for design.

Arranged in a nonsense order (no cheating on the eye test), but commonly starting with a capital E, the charts are used to determine visual acuity. But when you apply the letters in that simple but bold font to a pillow, they draw the eye and create a new kind of pattern.


Something different: A framed eye chart makes an even more graphic statement when supported by similar optometrist-based items — such as these vintage eyeglass molds in an art niche, by InterDesign Studio.


More different still is the oversize eye chart imprinted on an area rug in this room, by Croma Design.


Style Secret: Make Old New

Because medical offices and hospitals are constantly upgrading and remodeling to make way for new equipment, medical salvage is the stuff of flea markets, vintage shops and online stores. Interior designer Ondine Karady bought these hospital cabinets from a street vendor in New York. Today they serve as built-in cabinets in her home and hold her many collections.


The design pros at James Hill Architect installed a large stainless steel hospital cabinet in a San Francisco bathroom, making scrubbing in and cleaning up easy.


Something different: The hospitals of yesteryear were outfitted in stainless steel because it is durable and easy to sanitize and clean.

Salvaged pieces don’t work for everyone, but you can get the same effect and function with top-to-bottom stainless steel — cabinets, integral sink, backsplash and countertop — as seen here in a kitchen by Lankford Design Group.


Style Secret: Checking the Charts

Medical charts aren’t just for doctor’s clipboards — large illustrations on oversize pull-down charts were once used in the classroom and the exam room to help students and patients see the inside of the human body. In the context of an interior, such as this living room (by AAA Architecture), they take on an artistic quality.


Something different: Take the teaching tools to new (and sculptural) levels by displaying scale models.

The clients of interior designer Garrison Hullinger are clearly science-minded, with a skeleton in the corner and scientific specimens displayed on the shelves.


Style Secret: Break Out the Beakers

Forget the medical lab; beakers can be used for a host of decorating uses — such as a vase, as in this bathroom.


The beakers in this room, by Weaver Design Group, appear to be mini terrariums, giving the hard-core industrial items (and the room, for that matter) the warm touch of nature.


Something different: Beakers serve an entirely new purpose in this dining area, by Three Legged Pig Design — they have been recast as edgy juice carafes.

More geek chic: When Left and Right Brains Live in Harmony

URL: So Your Style Is: The Doctor Is In http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-24733.html