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In Defining Style, author Joan Barzilay Freund sets out to answer one deceptively tricky question: What is your design style? Part inspiration book, part field guide, it spotlights today’s top interiors across a wide range of aesthetics—from minimalist to maximalist, rustic to refined—helping readers pinpoint what resonates and why. Call it your design style cheat sheet—Defining Style helps connect the dots between what you love and why you love it.
In this excerpt, we’re diving headfirst into the world of monochromatic rooms, where one color, used boldly and brilliantly, can do all the heavy lifting. Whether it’s navy layered with linen and sisal or shades of pink splashed across tile, paint, and upholstery, these rooms show how tone-on-tone design can feel anything but one-note. Designers like Clare Gaskin and Paris Forino prove that when it comes to color, going all in pays off. Read on for more.
Monochromatic rooms are statement-making for their unapologetic embrace of a single hue. There’s a wow factor in a room dominated by one color, where intrigue comes in the form of texture, tone, and finish. Color theory suggests that different hues provoke feelings or moods: blues and greens soothe and calm; reds and yellows energize; grays evoke contemplation, while whites are associated with clarity and hope. Layering is key when it comes to working within a single-color palette; nuanced gradations of color, from dark to light, can add depth and visual interest. Darker colors tend to ground a room, while lighter shades add visual lift. Texture influences how we perceive color because surfaces react to light in different ways. Fabrics, such as wool or linen, and wood absorb light, giving it a warmer outlook. High-sheen fabrics like silk or velvet and sleek surfaces, including glass, stone, and plastic, reflect light back into a room, producing a feeling of lightness.
London-based designer Clare Gaskin doused the formerly all-white living room of a London residence with a resonant blue. “It had felt cold, dark, and slightly unloved,” says Gaskin. She knew that switching to a darker, fully saturated tone would give the small room patina and warmth. “It’s a smart navy that has depth and richness,” says Gaskin. The lower half of the room featured wainscoting, which the color suited well, bringing out the smoothness of the wood. Above the chair line, the designer papered the walls in a fine seagrass cloth that struck a similar visual chord. “The layering of textures played well with the natural and artificial light in the room,” explains Gaskin, pointing out the way the color changes from painted surface to fabric and then leaps onto the room’s furnishings, most of which are covered in linen and velvet.
Nicole Hollis’s decision to completely bathe a San Francisco dining room in cobalt blue makes it feel like a place one might enter after stepping through Alice’s looking glass. The room features a spectacular array of highly lacquered and polished surfaces, many crafted by top international artists, among them Olafur Eliasson and Mattia Bonetti. Hollis added her own creative touches, including the bespoke fireplace mantel, which is constructed of Brazilian blue granite with a bronze surround. The brilliant blue color was a special request of the client, says San Francisco–based Hollis. “Keeping the room monochrome feels more impactful. The color envelopes you.” Other rooms in the home were given similarly singular palettes, including a turquoise-green dressing room featuring psychedelic stencil work that glows in the dark.
The particular shade of pink that designer Paris Forino used in a kitchen in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood was also specified by the client. “I adore pink myself, so I was happy to oblige,” says Forino. “Pink is both happy and pretty. It sparks joy in a lot of people.” Pink was actually the dominant color for most of the rooms in the loft, which measures over four thousand square feet. The living-room walls are covered in a rose-toned wallpaper; a range of pinks can be found in the primary bathroom, from the glazed zellige shower tiles to the hand-plastered walls; and the primary bedroom features carpeting, wallpaper, and an upholstered bed frame, all in shades of dusty pink.
All-white spaces have become something of a calling card for Washington, D.C.–based designer Darryl Carter, who appreciates the ease with which white rooms accommodate an array of styles and eras. The living room of a Georgian Revival–style house in Virginia offers a crisp snapshot of Carter’s signature approach. “Working within a monochrome palette is trickier than meets the eye,” he says. “These environments are unforgiving and tend to show every detail. If not layered properly, they can be stark.” In the Virginia home, those layers come in the form of fabrics and a variety of furnishings. Carter enjoys mixing contemporary pieces, often of his own design, with gutsy antique offerings, usually featuring organic elements—the blistered leather and exposed stuffing seen on one of the room’s nineteenth-century occasional chairs is a good example of this. It’s the “disrepair” of the chairs, says Carter, that allows the all-white environs to slip easily into the informality of the homeowner’s daily life.
Lindsay Gerber Northart offers a dramatic counterpoint to Carter’s all-white decor. For the powder room of one San Francisco home (the city in which Northart’s firm Lindsay Gerber Interiors is based), the design brief was “New York City nightclub.” She accomplished that effect by engulfing the room in a mottled slate tone that is rich in mystery. Venetian plaster gives the walls a smoky appearance, while the Nero Marquina sink adds a touch of cosmopolitan chic, with its ink-black color and white veining. The room’s brightest spot comes in the shape of a pair of ovoid sconces that illuminate the room’s soigné visitors.
Amsterdam-based designer Nicole Dohmen was tasked with setting a celebratory mood when she took on a residence on the outskirts of the Dutch capital. Her client had strong opinions about color and wanted her home to project joy and confidence. “She loved mismatched hues and embracing imperfections to create a unique, creative aesthetic,” says the principal of Atelier ND Interior. “We were always in search of that perfect–imperfect balance.” Together they chose backdrop colors while observing how each performed at different times of day, as well as how they related to the overall furnishing scheme. They eventually settled on a custom lilac wall color for the dining room and a related grayish-pink for the living room. “By carefully curating each element, we ensured that the setting was cohesive, yet dynamic,” says Dohmen, whose choice of colors with similar tonal undercurrents creates a sense of continuity and balance that visitors sense as they move from room to room.
Excerpted from Defining Style © 2025 by Joan Barzilay Freund. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.
