The Artful Finisher

North Potomac’s Nettie Koepenick has a knack for adding the finishing touches.

Photographer Omar Salinas
By Carole Ottesen

The colors of the china in these place settings are repeated in the placemats, the grape leaf coasters, the gold candles, and in the violets and hydrangea of the flower arrangements. Candles and flower arrangements differ in height for visual interest.

When it comes to furnishing a room, most of us don’t have too much trouble figuring out where to place the major pieces of furniture. There are, after all, only a few places where large items–tables, couches, and sideboards–will actually fit in a room, and these spots are not difficult to find.

The way furniture will be used dictates placement, as well. The family needs a place to sit; the couch goes into the family room. The coffee and end tables get positioned around the couch, and the reading lamps are placed wherever they will do the most good.

But “accessorizing”–that’s decorator speak for adding the finishing touches that pull a room together–does not seem to follow the simple, left-brained logic of furniture placement. Grouping together objects in a way that does not cause your family and friends to say, “Why is all that junk on the hall table?” takes a certain je ne sais quoi.

Whatever that certain something is, Nettie Koepenick of North Potomac has it. She has created such pleasing rooms in both her house and garden that she’s been asked to stage houses for realtors.

It’s no wonder: Anyone who visits her home is treated to visual delights that are a photographer’s dream. Inside, the rooms flow from one photogenic space to another. And the rooms aren’t just pretty spaces, they are also comfortable and functional.

How does she do it? While it is hard to put the creative process into words, Koepenick gladly shares some of her rules of thumb.

Setting the Mood

When Koepenick and her husband first moved into the home, many of the rooms were dark and uninviting. Still, she knew they did not need to do any major remodeling–the solution was much simpler. She painted.

“Color is the first thing to think about,” says Koepenick. In fact, “it’s pretty much all about color.” While “there are whole studies done on color theory,” a few generalizations hold true. “Color sets the mood, the tone.” For example, says Koepenick, fast-food restaurants use bright orange and yellow that incite action, while in a “very expensive restaurant, there are soft, muted shades that make you want to sit and stay a while. Color can be emotional; it’s very powerful.” It can also unify.

“I pick one dominant color and use it in every room, in varying amounts,” says Koepenick. “All my rooms have a rainbow of colors, but the French blue is the common denominator that pulls it all together. For example, my dining room walls are painted a French blue, so I carried that color blue to a chair and striped drapes in my living room. My sofa in the family room has a blue background with French blue and sage green plaid fabric on the chairs. The accessories in my kitchen are blue.”

Achieving Harmony

As in friendships and good marriages, compatibility is the art of fitting together comfortably and pleasingly. In the field of interior décor, compatibility allows for plenty of playing space but shuns such discordant indiscretions as a lava lamp in a formal dining room or beanbag chairs next to a Queen Anne sofa.

Perhaps the easiest and most satisfying way to achieve harmony is the intuitive method. One simply follows one’s nose and assembles artifacts that are personally pleasing. Even a person with highly eclectic tastes will choose objects that eventually form a pattern.

Koepenick and her husband make a habit of picking up pieces that strike their fancy–wherever they find them. The couple are frequent travelers, and have come across some interesting artifacts, such as a personal check signed by John Lennon–one of the first written by the musician.

“I try to fill the room with pieces that I love. It makes the room more interesting and somehow it all seems to come together,” says Koepenick. “I try to stay away from ‘theme’ rooms. They tend to date the décor.” The method also ensures that every room of her home has a part of her in it.

The Element of Surprise

Surprise provides a whimsical grace note to any room; it is the gleam in décor’s eye. Unpredictable elements added to a room banish the “motel syndrome.” Like the shot of red in the Impressionist’s blue and green painting or the scattering of fallen leaves on the clean-swept path to a Zen temple, surprise keeps a room fresh and interesting.

“Don’t be afraid to mix and match woods. I use painted woods with cherry, mahogany, and maple stained woods,” says Koepenick. “It just keeps things from being too predictable. The same goes for furniture periods. I mix and match there, too. I might have a Queen Anne legged chair with a rustic English tray table. To keep antique upholstered pieces from looking too serious, I will put a more contemporary, fun fabric on them.”

Beauty allows for both compatibility and surprise to coexist in a room. “If a piece is beautiful,” says Koepenick, “it will go with any style.”

Building Vignettes

“Instead of dotting the room with little accessories,” says Koepenick, “I group like things together to create a bolder impact.” Vignettes are the groupings of objects that please the eye and invite closer inspection. They can be composed of collections, antiques, old photos, or just about anything that catches your eye.

To assemble one of the vignettes that grace her tables, she combines pieces of different heights. “I look at them like still life–there’s a taller object, a mid-height object and lower objects. I soften that out with other things–statues from the garden, little pill boxes,” or other possessions.

“I’m always looking for treasures–at a garden center, while lunching with friends, at an antique shop, at a furniture store.” To avoid the “model home” look, says Koepenick, “I don’t buy all my pieces at the same time at the same location.” Instead, collecting eclectically, she finds and buys what appeals to her and, eventually, happens upon the keystone, “the perfect accessory to tie it all together. This way the room evolves, and each piece I buy has a story attached to it that brings the room to life.”

Books are one of Koepenick’s favorite accessories. They are all the more desirable if they are titles Koepenick or her daughter has enjoyed reading.

“I look at books as beautiful objects and put them out so I can see their beautiful bindings. If they’re stuck in a bookshelf you can’t see them. I just really love books. I love to buy them.”

Presenting the Past

Not all of Koepenick’s treasures were purchases. Her most beloved ones were inherited.

In her family, heirlooms are “passed down in each generation to the daughters. Luckily, there has only been one daughter in each generation.” That meant that Koepenick inherited the exquisite set of china her grandmother painted by hand. Decorating the plates, cups, and bowls are flowers in gentle shades of lavender and green, accented with gold. This color scheme was the inspiration for Koepenick’s dining room.

“The whole room is designed around the china,” she says. Walls of French blue set off the focal point of the room, a magnificent punch bowl that is part of her grandmother’s service. Painted with a delicate grapevine–into which the artist deftly wove her signature–it rests, resplendent, upon the sideboard. This piece, along with “the dining room table, and the chairs, was bought around 1880 or 1890. [The furniture and the china] belonged to my great grandparents and grandparents, who lived together in a big, old house in Washington.”

The beautifully painted pieces have done more than bring beauty to her dining room–they have inspired Koepenick to create her own paintings. She draws heavily on her great grandmother’s work, even signing her pieces in a similar fashion.

The Lightest Touch

In decorating, there is always the danger of adding too much of a good thing. There can be simply too much and too many of everything–furniture, pictures, tables, rugs, chairs, and, especially, color. Finding the point at which “less” is a tantalizing “just right” is an art.

Koepenick has found “just right.” She has found it in colors that work efficiently to enhance and unify her rooms but are subtle in their effects. A visitor to her home is not likely to notice the specific shade of blue or yellow in her rooms, but will certainly experience the sense of airiness and sunlight these colors evoke.

Likewise, the collections of richly varied objects that fill her home intrigue the eye, but never overwhelm. These groupings are perfectly complete, but have been assembled with gentle restraint.

“A lot of people really like groups of objects jam packed. I personally like to see each individual object. If there are too many, they get lost.”

Perhaps Koepenick’s success with accessorizing arises from the selection process. She chooses with discretion: “Each object is unique all by itself. Combined with others, it enhances each of them.” And she adds only those objects she genuinely prizes: “I want each piece to be loved.”

Editor’s Note: Look for more on Nettie Koepenick’s garden in the Early Spring 2008 issue of Washington Home & Garden Magazine.