HOME DESIGN : Southwest Look Is Out; a Lot Else Is In : There’s a New Possibility for Every Taste in Hodgepoge of Decorating Trends

Homeowners who just put the last aqua pillow in place may be disheartened to learn that their favored Southwest look is fading into the sunset. It’s been superseded by neoclassic. Or maybe high-tech. Or soft contemporary. With post-modern influences. And Oriental notes. Anyway, it’s out, according to interior design experts.

Consensus hasn’t been reached, however, on what’s in .

“Orange County is such a hodgepodge of life styles--contemporary, eclectic, traditional,” says Byron de Arakal, vice president of public relations for model-home designer Carole Eichen Interiors in Santa Ana.

An informal survey of local designers also yields a hodgepodge of decorating trends. There’s a new look for every taste, including die-hard Southwest aficionados.

For those who have invested heavily in cotton upholstery and sand-patterned terra cotta, that Southwest look can be updated with faux stone and rustic wood furnishings, de Arakal says.

And for the traditional contingent, Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley print fabrics are still popular, de Arakal notes. They’re used with the whitewashed woods and light backgrounds that are very popular now, he says.

“Ralph Lauren’s timeless old-money look has tremendous appeal to the nouveau riche, “ says Michael Koski, communications director for Design Center South in Laguna Niguel.

But the hottest design trend in the county today is neoclassic, designers say.

Modern relics, walls that look as if they’ve been dug up from Pompeii are used to create an ancient Mediterranean feeling--the look of Florence or Santorini--that denotes the neoclassic style, according to de Arakal. Columns, pediments and statuary evocative of classical Greece or Rome work well in Orange County’s expensive homes, he says.

“People want more architectural drama in interiors to maintain space,” he says. “In high-end, $400,000 to $500,000 houses on very narrow lots, you have to create very high rooms for visual excitement and to legitimize the high price of a small home.

“Neoclassic is a very elegant look,” de Arakal says, with “very muted colors: gray, taupe, beige, very light tan--very monochromatic.”

Koski agrees: “Beige is big.”

If any color at all is used, Koski says, it will be deep, rich and vibrant. The influence of Paris couture collections and reaction against pastels in the waning Southwest look has designers turning to “jewel tones” of deep ruby red, sapphire, emerald, plum and teal.

“Pastels are out, out, out!” Koski declares .

Merry Brady, owner of Hampton Interiors in Laguna Niguel, shares the growing preference for strong accent colors and greater drama. Typical of the current look, she says, is the house she recently completed decorating in Corona del Mar for Don Zellner, who heads his own residential building firm in Costa Mesa.

The oceanfront house features what is “probably the most magnificent view of the coastline in Southern California,” she says. With the entire front of the house given over to the view, draperies, furnishings and colors are kept to a minimum--”lots of cream and beige, with accents of aubergine, teal and black.”

The kitchen cabinets are laminated with a mother-of-pearl-like finish, and the flooring is made of black granite--real granite, she says.

“I’m real tired of faux stone,” Brady says.

Although they’ve been widely used in everything from fireplace mantels to table tops, the textured synthetics are no longer appropriate for high-end Orange County houses that feature fine marble entry floors or polished granite fireplaces, designers say.

“If designers use stone, they’re going to real stone--fossil stone, marble, granite,” she says.

The preference for natural stone indicates renewed emphasis on quality in home furnishings, the designers say. Custom inlaid carpets, lots of tile, less clutter and high-quality comfort are in demand.

“People want a high level of comfort, a more sophisticated comfort,” says de Arakal of Carole Eichen Interiors.

That means getting the most out of each room in the house, he says.

“People commute more and have less time to spend together. They’re in a time crunch. So when they are home, they use their home intensively,” he maintains.

Formal living and dining rooms are giving way to something like the traditional “great rooms” of England, according to de Arakal. The family living center is a space to relax, entertain, take care of business with home office equipment, prepare meals--a mini-home in itself, he explains.

When it comes to comfort, Design Center South’s Koski warns that designer and client may have a conflict.

“That’s going to be a battle between client and designer,” he predicts. “The client wants comfort, while designers are moving away from overstuffed (upholstered pieces) in favor of sofas that lift off the floor, up on skinny legs.”

However that dilemma is resolved, designers better have options to offer, Koski says. In Orange County’s “hodgepodge,” he says, “people locked into one look or another are going to get left in the dirt.”

Local interior designers are also seeing a growing interest in original artwork. It personalizes a room, stamps it with the owner’s unique style and taste. It also bespeaks quality--imitation anything is out of place in Orange County’s increasingly upscale homes, the decorators note.

But works of art aren’t necessarily found in a frame or on a pedestal. Homeowners can sit--even eat--on the art they collect when the “original” is a piece of furniture.

“Everything here is a work of art,” says Yvonna Garcia of J. Robert Scott & Associates Inc., a furniture design firm in Laguna Niguel. Custom furniture designed by owner Sally Sirkin Lewis includes woods specially finished to match upholstery fabrics, glitzy little snakeskin tables and several hydraulic gadgets.

Hydraulics are hot, Garcia says, as she demonstrates a high-tech coffee table. A stainless steel cylinder is topped with a circle of glass an inch thick, with a fully rounded, or “bull-nose,” edge.

With a garage door opener-style remote control, the table top can be raised to dining or game table height or stopped at any point in between, making it possible for one room to serve as conference room, living room, game room or dining room, she points out. It’s great for people with limited space, says Garcia.

“Besides, men love these toys,” she adds. This “toy” isn’t cheap--it runs about $9,300. But customers willing to settle for a single adjustment from coffee table to dining height can save about $500.

There’s nothing new about carpets that are beautiful works of art. Museum-quality Oriental rugs, Swedish ryas and many of today’s custom inlaid designs all qualify. But IceFire in Laguna Beach, an Australia-based manufacturer, takes carpet art a step further. The international consortium of artists produces limited editions (no more than 100 each) of signed originals.

Each carpet is hand-dyed, hand-tufted and hand-carved. The tufting alone takes several months to complete, says Donald Hamill, president of IceFire’s U.S. division.

At $200 per square foot, a rug big enough to set off a hydraulic coffee table would cost just under $11,000.

Some art-furniture is not only functional, but fun. Like the collection of iron sconces, mirrors, tables and chairs designed by Douglas Murray, a Laguna Beach artist. This is wrought iron with a new twist--several new twists, in fact. Knots and squiggles and legs with a definite kink characterize the black-only iron frames for glass, wood or stone furniture.

“One of our favorite pieces is the Twist and Knot coffee table,” says Fred Wiedenbeck Jr., a salesman at Blake House in Laguna Niguel’s Design Center South, where Murray’s furniture is sold. The square glass-topped table, which sells for about $1,500, is aptly named--its frame twists in several directions, anchored by a knot in the center.

“We call it ‘the table that’s having a nervous breakdown,’ ” Wiedenbeck says.