Cozy Up to Color

Make your home reflect your personality and stand out in style.

- By Meryl Schoenbaum

Nashville, Tennessee, is a kaleidoscope of color, country, and character, so it's fitting that Daniel and Stacy Clayton would want their historic home in this lively city to reflect its unique charm, as well as their personal passions.

They knew that Lauren Elder, the owner/principal designer of Lauren Elder Interiors (laurenelderinteriors.com), could make their dream home come true. This would be the third project in 10 years that Lauren had worked on with the Claytons, so she had a good handle on their interests and interior design preferences.

"Stacy wanted me to make the home feel more like her; she doesn't do average or drab. She is never afraid to jump into a sea of color," Lauren says. "It's almost a game to see how deeply into the unknown colors of the paint deck I can wander with her projects!"

Lauren describes what she saw with her eye for design when she toured the home for the first time.

"My first impression was that it had incredible potential," Lauren says. "Nashville is filled with new construction, and that is most of our business. I was thrilled to get my hands on this older house, which is full of charm and character. It was cute before but lacked any real personality. Stacy is a mom of three girls and now, lots of 'grand-girls, so she's all about fun, funky and feminine."

Lauren says the ambiance she set out to achieve in her room designs was playful and cheery-with a heavy dose of "cozy!"