The Inte­rior Inspi­ra­tion design event in Old Lyme fea­tured some amaz­ing speak­ers. First up, the inim­itable Larry Laslo. Inte­rior designer, artist, fur­ni­ture and fab­ric designer — his work is world-renowned. His pre­sen­ta­tion "The World Accord­ing to Larry Laslo" was funny and irrev­er­ent, and spoke to so many of the issues every designer faces. He showed slides of his own home, which he admits is atyp­i­cally neu­tral. He feels after spend­ing all day work­ing with color, his eyes need to rest when he's home. He favors fresh flow­ers and gigan­tic leaves for touches of color and life at home. An easy idea for all of us to emulate!

Laslo believes in "wild eclec­ti­cism". "It's all in the mix", he says, and "all [one] period rooms are bor­ing". He dis­cussed many of the homes fea­tured on his website, with funny anec­dotes and insider tid­bits about each. "Matchy matchy is a car­di­nal sin!" — another design mantra to live by!

Laslo's Kips Bay Show House 2006 black & white suite

Laslo's advice for doing a show house space: do what you love, let your imag­i­na­tion run wild, and "bor­row big"!

client home in Aspen by Larry Laslo

Laslo inset this sculp­ture into the wood­work for a client in Aspen. The client insists the sculp­ture is a woman, while Laslo strongly dis­agrees "unless it's Venus Williams".

Other invalu­able advice from Laslo: you can't go wrong with white patent leather in the bath­room or espe­cially in the din­ing room — "a run­away meat­ball can be cleaned up with windex". And "hid­ing the tv is like putting a doll with a hoop skirt over the toi­let paper roll". Every­one has one and every­one uses it — no sense in hid­ing it!

Dur­ing the Q&A, I asked if he had ever fired a client and if so why. He said yes he had — because he had taken them to see a chan­de­lier ("very rea­son­able around $12,000"), and the next day the clients went to the shop and tried to buy it cash for less from the shop owner. The shop owner informed Laslo, one of his own biggest clients. Larry asked the clients the next day if they had ever worked with a designer before. They replied "yes" and he told them "you'd bet­ter dig out their card because we're done".  Even the biggest names in the busi­ness have to deal with peo­ple dis­re­spect­ful of the process.

Sharon and I with the amaz­ing Larry Laslo

There were so many wit­ti­cisms through­out the talk, I couldn't type them fast enough. Suf­fice to say he was a delight to meet and lis­ten to and his rooms are sheer inspi­ra­tion. Browse his web­site for some amaz­ing spaces!