Room of the Day: Warmth Added to a Contemporary Space

This young couple was excited to purchase their first home. Though they liked the open and airy modern layout, they needed help making it feel warm, comfortable and inviting. “The house was too sleek and felt cold. We needed to create a full, rich ambience,” interior designer Enza Ricco says. After going over the couple’s Houzz ideabooks, the designer had a strong sense of the styles and colors they were drawn to, and got to work adding layers of saturated hues, metallic finishes, warm textures and comfortable furniture to cozy up the home.

Photos by Stephani Buchman Photography

Living Room at a Glance
What happens here: A young couple entertains, reads and relaxes
Location: Midtown Toronto
Size: 150 square feet (14 square meters)

The home has an open plan — this entry area plus the living room, dining room and kitchen are open to one another. Ricco got to know her clients’ tastes well before diving in. “He is drawn to more urban eclectic and midcentury modern style, while she is more into classic contemporary — I needed to marry the two,” she says. She noted that her clients were drawn to moody, dramatic jewel tones, like deep teals, blues and violets, and that they also liked a range of grays. She also planned to incorporate a range of textures, metallic finishes and interesting shapes.

Ricco set the tone in the entry, finding a beautiful ombré wallcovering evocative of eglomise to bring in texture and layers of colors. Eglomise is a centuries-old technique of backing glass with metallic leaf and engraving in it designs that show through. The wallcovering’s gray tones have hues of blues and browns within them that are subtle, and the color changes with the light. The crackled-leaf effect mixes in almond tones. “The wallpaper is edgy and modern and makes a huge impact,” Ricco says.

Wallcovering: Eglomise, Harlequin UK; console: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams; mirror: Arteriors


The designer wanted to bring in a mix of warm metallic finishes, but she also wanted to be able to use the couple’s existing dining table, which has polished chrome legs and a marble top. This console table and the mirror with a beautiful chain-link detail tie that finish to the entryway. The table also has a drawer that is handy for dropping keys, gloves and mail as the couple enters the home. Here, the mirror reflects the deep jewel tones Ricco used across the space in the living room, while the wallcovering complements the overall color palette.


While scale was important here, a small space doesn’t mean all the furniture has to be petite. “I don’t like to use small-scale pieces in a small space. I like to go as big as possible,” Ricco says. She custom-designed the chairs, which have the midcentury style the husband loves, and the sofa. The upholstery on the chairs is a luxe deep sapphire, and the legs are walnut.

Bar cart: Arteriors


For the accent pillows, Ricco mixed a deep jewel-toned ombré velvet fabric with an artful botanical print. “The botanical fabric has a watercolor effect, but the colors are more intense and add depth,” she says. The sofa is a warm gray.

Because the living room is relatively small and narrow, finding pieces that were the right scale was important. The tall, narrow hammered-metal side table is just the right perch for a reading lamp and fits right into a narrow space next to the sofa.


“This rug is a piece of art. It changes color with the light and has a very subtle pattern.… I didn’t want a coffee table that covered it up,” the designer says. She chose a sculptural coffee table with an acrylic base and a curved glass top that maintains the open feeling while adding interesting shapes. “There are so many strong linear lines in here, for example on the fireplace,” the designer says. “I wanted to incorporate some organic sculptural lines.”

Rug: Elte


The side table on the other side of the sofa has a round top and a teardrop-shaped base and is solid walnut. The wood warms the room and ties the table to the armchairs and other elements we’ll see in the kitchen.

The design is a careful balance of strong linear lines and the curves Ricco added. She knew fussy window treatments wouldn’t work well in here, but privacy from the city street was needed. She added motorized semi-opaque roller shades that have a subtle texture and let the natural light come through when they are down.


Mixing several metallic finishes into the scheme also helped to warm up the room’s existing silvery finishes (if you look closely, you’ll see that the fireplace surround is inset with metal in the grooves). Ricco incorporated blackened iron, bronze and antique brass into the design.

This table lamp is a lustrous bronze smoky glass with hand-etched vertical striping. The lustrous glass also nods to the eglomise look of the wallcovering in the entry, as the technique has its roots in metal-leaf-backed glass. The amethyst crystal sculpture adds more interesting glass to the room.


The room runs right up to the dining room, so a cohesive flow between the two is important. A strategically placed antique brass bar cart helps ease the transition. “They are young and love to entertain,” Ricco says. “The cart was also an opportunity to place more light. I love it when I can place a lamp on a bar cart.” The lamp is hand-etched dark gray glass.

A clean-lined chandelier that combines dark bronze and antique bronze adds a warm midcentury modern-inspired touch overhead. Candlesticks and bowls add more interesting shapes to the table and the windowsill. The couple also loves to play music, so a docking station is strategically placed to serve both rooms.


Passing through the dining room, one lands in the kitchen, which had been renovated just before the couple bought the home. Ricco made a few tweaks to tie it into the rest of the rooms in the open space, adding ombré smoky glass pendants overhead and walnut counter stools.

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