Houzz Tour: A Home of a Different Color

Designer Erin Iba and the owners of this Boulder, Colorado, home were put together by Designer Premier, an agency that pairs interior designers and architects with potential clients. Marina Dagenais, the woman who brought them together, must feel like the ultimate matchmaker, because the partnership between the fearless homeowners and the color- and pattern-loving interior designer is a match made in interiors heaven. The modern house was given a lively mix of vibrant colors, vivid prints and eye-popping wallpapers. Let’s put it this way: When an interior designer tells you that she considers a purple velvet sofa a neutral, you know her approach is not for the faint of heart.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their 2 sons, ages 10 and 8
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Designer: Erin Iba, Iba Design Associates
Size: 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
That’s interesting: It took 17 tries to get the orange ceiling in the living-dining room right.

Here’s how the process unfolded: The designer arrived at the first meeting to find a modern house constructed from mostly glass and metal and filled with every shade of brown you can imagine. “There were brown carpets, brown window treatments and dark leather sofas,” she says. But a funny thing happened during the initial interviews. Iba realized that the traditional neutral didn’t reflect the family at all. “They are full of life and personality,” she says. “They loved color and pattern, and they weren’t afraid of it at all.”

The home’s entry sets the stage for some unexpected elements. The walls are covered with a wallpaper printed with a photograph of board-formed concrete walls. “I chose a really shiny finish, because I didn’t want people to mistake it for actual concrete,” the designer says. “It looks as if a photograph of the material has been applied to the wall.”

A red rope chair is a fun alternative to the standard bench in many American entries. “Sure, you need a place to sit and take your shoes off,” says Iba. “But why not make that place interesting?” This line of thinking informed the rest of the design.

Wallpaper: Galapagos, Flavor Paper


Entering the living room, you are struck by two things: the high-sheen orange ceiling and the purple velvet sofa. “It’s very Austin Powers, isn’t it?” says the designer, with a laugh.

Her feeling was that an orange ceiling would be young, fun and expressive. The paint initially didn’t seem to belong on the ceiling. “It kept peeling off at first,” says the designer. “High-gloss paint can be hard to work with.” Finally, after she figured out the technique with the contractor and the vendors, the upper reaches of the room took on a warm glow. “Now it’s anything but generic,” says Iba.

She describes the purple sofa as a neutral. When an incredulous reporter asked her how this could be, she said: “After we painted the ceiling orange, we decided we needed something to temper it down. We could have used brown or gray, but that would have been boring. Purple does the trick.”

The designer also says she considers the highly patterned curtains art. “There’s very little room to hang conventional artwork here,” she says. “The curtains give the room color, texture and life. They also contain all the colors of the room, so they tie everything together.”

Chandelier: ABC Carpet & Home


The fireplace that divided the living room and dining room could have been a deal breaker. “It was covered with slate, and it didn’t go all the way to the ceiling,” says Iba. “It was really wrong for the space. I took one look and said, ‘I can’t help you if you aren’t willing to change the fireplace.’” They were, and she did — covering it with orange back-painted glass and extending it to touch the ceiling.


The hard plastic chairs are classics the designer owns and loves. “One of the owners was skeptical,” she says. “But after they arrived, he called them the most comfortable dining room chairs he’d ever sat in.”

The couple already owned the table, and new light fixtures seem to float over it; they are made in the form of puffy clouds. “I think they soften the room,” says Iba.

Chairs: Masters, Kartell


The kitchen appears much as it did when the family moved in, but new window treatments have made all the difference. “They pull colors from the tile and the adjacent breakfast room,” says Iba.


The breakfast area is not just a place for reading the morning paper over a cup of coffee; you are surrounded by the news. “It’s a wallpaper made of recycled newspapers,” Iba says.

Wallpaper: Pollack; table: CB2; chairs: West Elm


Statement-making wallpaper is also featured in the powder room. “Here’s my feeling: Guests may not see your kitchen or your family room, but they will likely ask to use your bathroom,” says Iba. “Do something spectacular there.”

Wallpaper: Love Monkey, Flavor Paper


You may not be able to read the words crumpled on the breakfast area’s walls, but in the master bedroom you certainly can, and they are meaningful. “I asked the client to come up with a poem, a song or a saying to paint on the wall,” says Iba. “They came up with several lovely quotes that were personal to them. We hired a calligrapher to put them on the wall.”

The rainbow-hued bed is large in scale; Iba describes its proportions as something out of Alice in Wonderland. The curtains have an equally strong pattern. “At first I designed something that was calm and relaxed,” the designer says. “But the owners wanted something more dynamic. They said, ‘You’ve created so many other wonderful details in the house; we want something similar here.’ In the end I think it’s a room that screams, but screams quietly.”


In the master bedroom, Iba added a metal penny tile behind the sinks. “It just keeps the room going in the same direction as the rest of the house,” she says.


The designer considers this room, the home office, to be the Grand Central Station of the house. “This is where the parents keep the schedules straight,” she says.

Instead of standard office chairs, Iba chose wingback chairs. “They sit here for short periods — it’s not all day,” she says. “Plus, they wanted to have a sofa in here to enjoy the occasional glass of wine while they plan their vacations. There was no room for that, so I gave them comfortable chairs.”

Chairs, desks: CB2


The family room is for both kids and adults. When designing it, Iba imagined an old-fashioned gumball machine and all the colors such an item would contain. The result is a candy-colored sectional in which each seat is a different hue.


A simple table in the family room makes space for everything from homework to pizza parties. Also here: a foosball table. “The corner needed something,” Iba says. “Why not make it fun and functional?”

The project had just been finished when the designer got a big surprise. “The family went on vacation in Costa Rica and, on the spur of the moment, they decided to move down there. I was shocked,” says Iba. “But after I thought about it, it made perfect sense.” Her clients, unafraid to push the boundaries of design, were equally fearless when it came to pulling their kids out of school and starting a life in a new country. Just another move not for the faint of heart.

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