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Oh, I know.
Birds are overly cutesy or kind of remind you of your Gandma’s house (sorry, Grammy!). But something weird has been percolatin’ in the home furnishings biz lately. Birds kind of got cool. Well okay, there was a while there that you saw birds on everything…these really lifeless silhouettey looking things. Kind of boring. I like to think that the show Portlandia helped put the brakes on that with their excellent skit (“Put a bird on it!”). If you’ve seen this, you’re laughing right now just thinking about it. (If you haven’t watched Portlandia on IFC or Netflix, then you should be. There’s really no excuse. Consider it homework.)
But the bird motif as a design trend didn’t go away, it kind of grew up. Some of the stuff coming out lately is very sophisticated, but still retains a bit of playfulness that allows it to work well in a variety of spaces. The real trick to using avian imagery in design is knowing when to say when. Too much and you run the risk of it taking over and becoming too precious and cartoony. A little bird goes a long way!
I love this bird cage lighting series from Graham and Green. It definitely lightens up a very serious room…
Abstracted and modern avian pieces can be subtle as well as beautiful.
Even bird motif wallpaper looks great when paired with more sophisticated furnishings!
Artist Charley Harper’s work still looks amazingly modern after decades and dovetails in nicely with this trend. (Get it? Dovetails? Ok, I know. That was weak.)
It even works well with large upholstered pieces.
Rohde Hill, interior designer, S. Rohde Hill Design
