Designers perk up home with flower power

The owners of this suburban New York City home wanted to incorporate the vivid colors and motifs of fresh flowers

From Elsa Klensch
CNN Style Correspondent

(CNN) -- Interior designers William Diamond and Anthony Baratta have a green thumb when it comes to decorating. They've taken a home in the suburbs of New York City and filled it with a bright, cheery, floral motif.

They got the idea from their clients, a semi-retired couple.

"When the client sat down with us ... she brought us pictures of the most beautiful flower arrangements, and she said, 'These are the colors that we want. This is what I'd like to achieve,' and we started right from there," Diamond says.

INTERACTIVE GALLERY See what the designers did    VIDEO CNN's Elsa Klensch examines the home's decor Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The decorators added a drop of hydroponics to the plan, spreading giant blossoms and oversized furniture throughout the home.

"Our upholsterer teased us about the scale of the sofa," Diamond says. "He says it's the largest sofa that he has ever made."

The rug in the living room is made of 80 hand-stitched panels, each featuring a different flower. The decorators say they wanted every one to look authentic.

The dining area, which takes up a third of the living room, has an oversized ash dining table and extra-large country chairs. Diamond and Baratta got their idea for the seats from the Scottish island of Orkney.

Interior designers Anthony Baratta, left, and William Diamond give CNN's Elsa Klensch the grand tour

"They never made them to this scale," Diamond says. "We made them much higher, much wider, so that the client and the guest could lounge around at the dining room table."

Diamond and Baratta designed an oversized headboard for the bedroom in an 18th-century Italian style. They covered it in hand-woven wool fabric to give it a contemporary look.

The bedding, which was special-ordered, has the same green-apple and white check pattern. Those colors play off the wallpaper, with its "enormous, brightly colored pink peonies on a very sunflowery, yellow background," Diamond explains.

The distinctive touches throughout the bedroom and the rest of the house may require more work, but that makes the undertaking more rewarding, he says.

"In order to have very special projects," Diamond says, "you have to design the rugs, we have to design the fabrics, we have to design and do all the architecture in order to get something very special and new."

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