Edina Living Room

Designer: Gigi Olive
Firm: Gigi Olive Interior Design, 275 Market St., Ste. 469, Mpls.,
612-341-4020

Sometimes design starts in the most unexpected places. For this Edina residence, the design of the entire living room—the colors, textures, and shapes—was enthused by a pair of cheetah statues that the owner had acquired years before. “When we started, we were going for a slightly exotic and subtle animal theme,” says interior designer Gigi Olive, ASID, CID. The designer’s original color scheme of sage, ivory, and taupe was picked to mimic the coloring of those statues, but because one of the fabrics they wanted to use was discontinued, Olive and the homeowner decided to take the room in a slightly different direction. “Instead, we ended up with a palette of glossy blacks, dove gray, and ashy chocolate.”

“The goal,” says Olive, “was to create a space that is inviting, sophisticated, and comfortable. The homeowner wanted to soften the contemporary lines of the home, while still complementing the architecture.” And while it was a pair of cheetah statues that sparked the design, it is a commissioned painting that gives the space distinct personality and ties together various elements.

“The homeowner loves the art of John Singer Sargent,” Olive says. “Especially his painting of Madame X, so we had a similar oil-on-canvas commissioned with the specific dimensions to fit the space. We wanted it very, very overstated.” As this living space is one of the first rooms you see when entering the home, the painting really pops, pulls the space together, and sets the design theme for the rest of the home.

Once the designer and homeowner had settled on the color scheme and overall look and feel of the room, Olive commissioned a large area rug from Weskuske. The light taupe and black play off the colors in the Madame X painting, while the imperfect circle-within-circle pattern is a contemporary and oversized imitation of the cheetah’s spots. The fabrics on the two Tomlinson sofas, the custom-made ottoman, and the William Switzer side chair were chosen as much for their look as for their durability. “I wanted to impress that you can have fabrics that look great, but that are not necessarily fragile,” Olive says. The sofa’s tone-on-tone Quadrille fabric is complemented by garnet Bergamo–upholstered pillows and the side chair’s chocolate and gray leaf-patterned fabric by Jack Lenor Larson.

Rounding out the rooms is a low and stout cocktail table by Marge Carson, Conrad shades that buffer the room from the view of the backyard, and a few other subtle animal statues that complement the cheetahs.