Design Happy: Colorful Homes for the Modern Family

Interior designer Wentz debuts with a striking tour of 12 homes she’s decorated, including her own, that showcase her vibrant, “modern-meets-traditional” style. “Design is about finding the happy,” she contends, showing how she’s applied that mantra to homes in Florida, Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In the Everglades, Wentz combines a blue color scheme with Moroccan-inspired tile flooring to produce a palatial, serene environment. Her own home in western Pennsylvania balances brightly colored functional elements in shared spaces that meet the needs of her children (glossy blue, green, and orange floor-to-ceiling cupboards near the back door hold the kids’ outdoor gear) against the softer hues of silver and green in the primary bedroom that create a “calm oasis” with a “treetop feeling.” The gorgeous spaces dazzle in their taste and variety, and smart tips describe how to apply Wentz’s design philosophy: for instance, she recommends relying on drapery and upholstery to add “texture” to a room, mounting a “Roman shade... higher than the opening itself to create the illusion of a larger window,” and selecting “items that are similar in color tone but different in pattern and scale” to make a room more visually dynamic. This will help readers take their home decor to the next level. (Apr.)