WHERE: Kips Bay Living Room by Richard Mishaan

Every designer at Kips Bay faces challenges of time, resources and space. This year, Richard Mishaan faced an unusual test: his assignment was the second-floor living area, which measures approximately 20 feet deep by 40 feet long. With generous windows along one wall and exquisite woodwork throughout, the room could be a dream assignment – or a nightmare to decorate.

Mishaan rose to the occasion, creating a seating area in one half of the room and a dining area in the other. Soft tones and rich (but not heavy) textures play up the room’s best assets, while stunning furnishings thoughtfully placed create parity, balance and focus. Mishaan’s finishing touch: blending art and accessories in unexpected yet surprisingly successful ways (the designer’s own Butero hangs between two overscale gilded mirrors).

Though Sister Parish, the room’s original decorator, might not recognize the room today surely she would appreciate its strong point of view and creative mix of textures – and that lovely yellow windowpane check on the walls!

The Kips Bay 2011 Decorators Showhouse is open through May 26. For more information, please visit kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org or call 718 893 8600 x245. Photo courtesy designwire.interiordesign.net. Info courtesy The New York Times.

WHO: Sister Parish

Sister Parish was the first interior designer brought in to decorate the Kennedy White House, and her influence can still be seen in the Family Dining Room and the Yellow Oval Room.

A stately and occasionally eccentric white-haired lady, Parish was the design partner of Albert Hadley, a Tennessee-born decorator, with whom she co-founded Parish-Hadley Associates (1962-1999). Both were equally influential: Parish for her homey, cluttered traditionalism and passion for patchwork quilts, painted furniture, and red-lacquer secretaries and Hadley for his clean-cut take on modernism.

She was partial to the understated English country house look, and her combinations of Colefax and Fowler chintzes, overstuffed armchairs, and brocade sofas with such unexpected items as patchwork quilts, four-poster beds, knitted throws, and rag rugs led to her being credited with ushering in what became known as American country style during the 1960s.

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