This week we are lucky to have a guest blog post from Abid Ilahi from Asmara Inc. which manufactures many of the beautiful needlepoint rugs you can find in our own stores.

After reading all the great posts by Abid on his own blog I thought it would be a treat to have him share some of his knowledge.  So without further ado:

It is an honor to be invited to write a guest post for the Kellogg Collection, a company whose excellence and integrity in providing the stylish home decors and interior design services I have admired for the 23+ years they have been an Asmara dealer.

With the view to the fall which will soon be here, I have chosen 14 fabulous interiors and decorating schemes with red, pink, coral and pomegranate needlepoint rugs with a variety of different decorating styles. There are many talented interior designers at your favorite Kellogg Collection showroom who are highly qualified to offer you personalized decorating assistance. The interiors and design schemes below are offered as a travelogue through the decorating styles of other parts of the country. They may not be your decorating style, but I hope they will stimulate your own ideas on:

• How to create beautiful traditional or contemporary living rooms with needlepoint rugs that contain red, coral, pink or pomegranate.
  
• How to derive the room’s color palette from a needlepoint rug
• How to create several different color palettes and looks from the same needlepoint rug
• How to create two fabulous adjoining spaces with two needlepoint rugs of the same design
• How to create a dazzling living room with reds by choosing a needlepoint rug with no reds.
• How to accentuate the rooms architecture with the right needlepoint rug.

1. Interior designer Eric Guenther of Whim Home in chose the Bergamo Needlepoint Rug in pomegranate red and cream for a contemporary seating area in his Southern California showroom. Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

The pattern and color is provided by the needlepoint rug, the screen and the painting while the sofa and chair are in neutrals. The dark wood floor accentuates the drama in this seating area. There is an interesting interplay between the geometric pattern on the screen and the organic pattern of the needlepoint rug.

2. Eric Guenther shows how to freshen the look of the above room while keeping the same Bergamo needlepoint rug and just changing the fabrics on one chair.

Eric believes that by using a high fashion or strongly patterned fabrics on one or two chairs and pillows you can easily update the look of a living room while upholstering the sofa in safe neutral colors.

The picture shows several fabrics choices for chairs. Eric is comfortable with the idea of mixing strongly patterned fabrics with patterned needlepoint rugs. The blue fabric are designed to create pop against the red colors of the needlepoint rug.

3. The Bergamo needlepoint was chosen for this traditional living room designed by Washington DC interior designer Susan Nelson. The pomegranate red in the needlepoint rug inspired the color of the Venetian plastered wall. Susan created pop with blues in the ottoman, the William Morris fabric on the wing chairs and the client’s  blue and white porcelain collection. Image courtesy Susan Nelson.

4. Susan Nelson chose fabrics with yellows, golds and warm reds to create a warm ambiance in this bedroom with the same pomegranate red and cream Bergamo needlepoint rug. The head board and the sofa in the seating area are upholstered in cool blues to create pop and to balance the warm colors in the needlepoint rug and the fabrics on the bed and pillows. Image courtesy Susan Nelson.

5. Sea Island, Georgia interior designer Lisa Torbett painted the walls and ceiling white to dramatize the red and gold geometric Agra needlepoint rug in this living room on Sea Island. The red colors in the upholstery and drapery fabric move the eye towards the brilliant blue of the Atlantic visible through the arched portico. Their is a wonderful resonance between the geometric pattern of the needlepoint rug and the architecture of the portico.Image courtesy Lisa Torbett Interiors.

6. Southern California interior designer Eric Guenther literally slided in the Canterbury Bessarabian pile rug in his own living room without changing any of the fabrics, furnishings or wall covering. Eric was demonstrating his approach to creating an authentic European look right out of the pages of London’s The World of Interiors. TheCanterbury needlepoint rug offers the same color and pattern in a needlepoint rug texture. Image (c) Asmara, Inc. 

7. Eric did an instant refresh of his southern California dining room by just adding the Hermitage Needlepoint Rug to the existing furnishings in his dining room. Eric marveled at how the black and gold Greek-key border in the needlepoint rug resonates with the carved pattern in the leg of the dining table. He points out that the high contrast of red and black against a cream and beige background of the needlepoint rug brought a lively energy to the previously somber dining room.  Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

8. Eric demonstrates how he could create a different look in his dining room with the Hermitage needlepoint rug by selecting a different fabric for the dining room chairs. Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

9. New York design icon Bunny Williams anchored this timeless English living room on a fabulous antique Bessarabian rug. The Bessarabian rug’s complex balance of cool and warm colors- reds, yellow, gold, green, blue, and brown create just the right tension and resonance with the colors of the floral fabrics, wall, porcelain and impressionist paintings. Image courtesy Bunny Williams.

10. Alexis McDermott Asmara’s Marketing and Design Manager created this bedroom design scheme on the Modlova needlepoint rug which has a design similar to the Bessarabian rug in Bunny Williams living room above. Alexis wanted to show how you can create a modern bedroom with a traditional needlepoint rug with a multitude of vibrant colors- reds, yellows, purple, blue, black and green if you chose contemporary furniture with large expanse of neutrals from the needlepoint rug- in this case white and black. She shows how to create pop with accessories by restricting their colors to no more than two from the needlepoint rug-in this case red and yellow. Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

11. Maryland interior designer Justine Sancho defined two adjoining spaces with two Mid Summer Nightneedlepoint rugs. Notice how Justine created two distinct color palettes for the two rooms from the same needlepoint rug- demonstrating how multiple color schemes can be derived from a well colored needlepoint rug. The dining area pulls out the red accents from the needlepoint rug and the seating are fabrics harmonize with the golds and yellows in the needlepoint rug. Image courtesy Justine Sancho.

12. Natural light filters through the garden into the sunroom seating area anchored on on the secondMidsummer Night needlepoint rug. The tree and branches pattern of the needlepoint rug and the trellis leaf pattern of the drapery fabric continue the garden theme. Image courtesy Justine Sancho.

13. Interior designer Bill Barr moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts from San Francisco. Bill says decorating flexibility has become more important for clients when chosing needlepoint rugs and other major pieces for a living room. A well chosen needlepoint rug will allow you to create new color schemes and decorating styles should your life style and tastes change. Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

“I guess the surprise came for me when I started pulling images for the World Traveler collage” (pictured above), wrote Bill in the Designer Rug Blog. “It amazed me that the Summer rug which is a traditional floral and vine motif rug, looks so good with South East Asian, Middle Eastern and British Colonial furnishings.

Bill created two more living room design schemes for the Summer needlepoint rug:

14. “Of course the Summer rug is right at home in the traditional vernacular” wrote Bill Barr, “but keep in mind the sofa for instance, could have been red, yellow, beige, green, pink, brown, tan or off white, now that is flexibility”! Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

15. “I love the way this rug softens the sharp lines of the French Deco inspired scheme I pulled together above. It is unexpected too, a truly Art Deco rug would have felt predictable and uncreative” wrote Bill Barr. Image (c) Asmara, Inc.

The above images show just a few of the many different patterns and colorations in needlepoint rugs at The Kellogg Collection. The best way to see the exciting possibilities of decorating with geometric patterns or other colorations in needlepoint rugs is to view the rugs in person at The Kellogg Collection.