View full sizeA classical bust is paired with orchids in “Intelligent Choices,” a room vignette created by Wolfs interior design firm for the Cleveland Interior Designer Showcase at Orchid Mania. The showcase includes rooms by area designers who were inspired by orchids.
A single orchid is lovely, but a group of local interior designers at Cleveland Botanical Garden isdemonstrating the unusual and beautiful ways that groups of the flowers can make a room sparkle. Get orchids out of a windowsill, designers say, and try framing them as art, setting them in a bookcase or even hanging them upside down from the ceiling.
This year’s Orchid Mania, the annual celebration of orchids at Cleveland Botanical Garden, includes the Cleveland Interior Design Showcase. More than a dozen top local designers created room vignettes inspired by or accented with orchids.
Orchid Mania continues at the botanical garden through Sunday, March 9. Meet and Greet the Interior Designers nights are 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through March 5.
The participating designers let orchids fuel their imaginations when designing their rooms. Reflections Interior Design in Cleveland Heights put orchids in frames and mounted them on walls as if they were works of art. Lee Meier Interiors in Westlake went bold with a backdrop of green geometrical wallpaper, while Wolfs on Larchmere Blvd. in Cleveland put orchids next to large sculptural busts in a room titled “Intelligent Choices.”
One of the most unusual rooms came from Kidist Getachew of Cleveland, who suspended an egg-shaped, futuristic-looking chair above a path of orchids.
“Every space couldn’t be more different,” said Chris Kascsak, who with Bret Manning is a principle designer of In Design Inc. based in Cleveland.
Kascsak helped organize the exhibit and chose the four colors that designers could use in their spaces. The hues were Benjamin Moore BM 2058-30 Deep Ocean, and Sherwin-Williams colors SW 6726 Talipot palm, SW 6557 Purple Passage and SW 7589 Habenero Chile.
Carol Wellman of Carol M. Wellman Interiors used all four colors in large squares, set off with a “tree” made of potted orchids.
The room created by In Design, “Cabinet of Curiosities,” featured a large bookcase that, instead of books, held light pink and deep pink orchids and jade green pots.
Kascsak and Manning created a brightly saturated space with Habenero Chile and fushia — two colors that would seemingly clash but actually played together very well – in striped curtains. The hues work because both are saturated colors, Kascsak said.
Walls and the inside of a large bookcase were painted coral; the same color popped up in two chairs covered with an Asian print. A leopard rug prevented the traditional bookcase from feeling stuffy.
“I think it’s pretty fresh,” Kascsak said. “We love color. We’re known for our brilliant color.
Janna Lutz, principle designer of Janna Lutz Interiors and the retail store Chestnut Hill Home, both in Chagrin Falls, titled her room “She Blinded me with Science and Orchids” as a nod towards the creation of new varieties of orchids. Lutz wanted to showcase the blooms, so she was delighted to find a driftwood candelabra that had lots of spaces for pots. “It’s a beautiful way of presenting potted orchids,” she said.
Lutz chose peach and dusty pink orchids to accent her Habenero Chile walls. “It turned out like it was supposed to,” she said.
IF YOU GO
Orchid Mania
Cleveland Botanical Garden
Now through Sunday, March 9.
Hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Hours extended to 9 p.m. on Wednesday. Closed Monday.
Admission: Free for members, $11 for adults, $6 for children ages 3-12. This includes the entire garden, the Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse and Orchid Mania activities.
11030 East Blvd. cbgarden.org
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