If spending so much time indoors the past few months has an upside (other than slowing the spread of COVID-19, of course), it’s that it led the metro area’s top interior designers to rethink their abodes. Whether you’re forced to stay inside or not, their easy-to-execute upgrades will make your home feel and function better.

Windows on the World

Photo courtesy of Artifact Uprising

With future excursion plans in limbo, Atelier Interior Design’s Katie Schroder decided to catch up on printing and displaying photos from her previous vacations. “I find I’m really treasuring things I can look at from past travels,” she says. Leave end tables and other surfaces open for functional items like lamps and coasters, Schroder says. Instead, hang small photos in gallery-style groupings to help them fill a space. For a budget-friendly option, we love Denver-based Artifact Uprising’s Polaroid-reminiscent prints charmingly displayed with twinkling lights. Prints from $9 for 10

5280 June 2020
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Shelf Life

The design gurus at Studio Thomas use a formula they call “the five elements”—wood, metal, texture, reflection, life—to balance entire rooms, but the combination also can transform smaller spaces, like that bookshelf you’ve grown sick of looking at. Incorporate a wood bowl, a metal sculpture, books with textured covers, glass candle holders, and a plant. A local source for vintage volumes and curios? Athmar Park’s Eron Johnson Antiques, which has an online store for social distance conscious shoppers.

Flower Power

Photo by Tod Kapke/courtesy of Moss Pink Flora & Botanicals

After receiving a surprise arrangement herself, Schroder had her local florist, Moss Pink Flora & Botanicals, deliver fresh blooms to six friends during the stay-at-home order to inject a dose of color into their homes. If you want bouquets regularly brought to your door, sign up online for the East Colfax Avenue shop’s subscription service to set your budget and desired delivery frequency. Bouquets start at $50

Defining Characteristics

When she began working from home with her husband and two young boys during Denver’s stay-at-home order, Kaleidoscope Design’s Cassy Kicklighter Poole set up a system that should bring structure to any school-free span: dedicated, task-oriented stations. “Centers throughout the house keep things consistent,” Kicklighter Poole says. One end of her dining room table is now a workspace stocked with pens, crayons, and paper for the kids; the kitchen hosts help-yourself snack bins; and the basement is fair game for rowdy play.