Whenever Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams made a personal appearance, their fans would ask how to achieve their comfortable yet stylish look.

Publishers also recognized the potential to cash in on their comfort zone. Finally, after expanding their original upholstery line to case goods and accessories, they agreed it’s time to tell their story and show how all the pieces fit together.

The result is “Let’s Get Comfortable: How to Furnish and Decorate a Welcoming Home” (Meredith Books, $34.95), a primer for decorating that helps the reader fulfill Gold’s mantra: “When a home is successfully furnished, just walking in the door is like getting a hug.”

You must know the look. Their $100-million-a-year company, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, supplies chains like Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Williams Sonoma Home and Restoration Hardware and has 13 namesake licensed stores, including one that just opened in San Juan.

A branded Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams store is scheduled to open in April in the Miami Design District, and Gold says they are seriously thinking about opening in Palm Beach Gardens. (Gold’sparents, Jack and Rhoda Gold, live in Pompano Beach.)

We chatted with them by phone to find out how to do what they do.

Q: What’s your best design advice for Florida?

MG: We love white slipcovers. They are always so fresh-looking and crisp.

BW: What’s nice about them is the more you wash them, the more comfortable they become. It becomes a great sofa to take a nap on.

Q: Your book offers what it calls `comfort lessons.’ How do you define comfort?

BW: There are two different aspects to comfort – physical and mental. There’s the physical comfort of the chair, how the fabric feels and if it supports your lower back when you sit in it. The second part is something people don’t often think about in home furnishings. It’s the mental part of being comfortable. Do you have a room that you feel comfortable in? Some of us feel you have to have a formal room that is very uptight and dressy. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable in those rooms. They never use them. People have to feel that they are a part of the room.

MG: It’s balance. A house has to be soothing to the eye. When you have slipcovered furniture, you really reduce the stress factor. Bob and I have always wanted to reduce the stress.

Q: You have found things like a chandelier in an Los Angeles junk shop. What advice do you have for people looking in offbeat places for furnishings?

BW: That was a lot of luck. When I found it, it was spray-painted gold. It looked pretty ugly. But I started looking at the lines and realized it was forged iron and would be great for the house. The size was perfect and would make a great presence. It cost me more to ship it back to North Carolina than it cost me to buy it.

MG: A person has to have a little bit of feel for spotting the potential of a chandelier in a junk shop. But you don’t necessarily have to have an eye to collect something like snow globes.

Q: In your book, there’s a section on the piece of your dreams; what’s yours?

MG: We always say our furniture is like children. You can’t have a favorite, but I love antique 18th century chests. I think they are so sculptural. The finishes are so beautiful and mix with a modern setting.

BW: It’s hard because the furniture is always changing. I see pieces I may not like and then I see them in another fabric and like them more. Probably my favorite is the upholstered bed, especially the “Greenwich” that I had in my house.

Q: How did Lulu, your bulldog and the company mascot, contribute to the book?

MG: One of things that is interesting is we didn’t have her pose as we usually do for our ads. We would start to do the photo shoot with an empty room. As soon as the photo was set up, she would walk into the setting. On the cover shot, Bob and I were standing there and she wandered into the shot. She crawled up on the blue sofa and fell asleep, so we took her photo. She gave us good humor. It was a laborious project putting together a book like that.

BW: We never had to point her toward the camera. She’s a ham.

Q: When you don’t use your own company’s furniture, what else do you buy?

MG: Mostly antiques or flea market pieces. We wouldn’t go buy upholstery from another company. It wouldn’t be comfortable and the price wouldn’t be right.

BW: No, it wouldn’t.

Q: Any advice for aging Baby Boomers, such as higher coffee tables?

MG: I think the best piece of advice is to have different types of seating. Some should be straight up and firmer and easy to get in and out of. Others should be deep, plush things. For me, I love to sit in the “Gloria,” a tufted slipper chair that has been in the line for 12 years. It is one of our more popular chairs. If you think of someone like my parents, they can’t get out of a deep, goose-down sofa. They need something firmer. But it’s nice to have a nice goosey sofa to take a nap on.

Q: What do you want the reader to get from it?

MG: I think what we really want is people to live comfortably. Too many people are uptight when they are decorating. They are nervous. We want to share with them how to have a comfortable home. We are out to make the world more comfortable.

ON COMFORT:

We have all felt it. You walk into someone’s house and something about the decor makes you feel comfortable before you even sit down.

What do these folks know that you don’t?

Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams have made a business out of knowing how to create a room that makes people feel like sitting down and staying awhile. The authors of “Let’s Get Comfortable: How to Furnish a Welcoming Home” want you to learn how to create an environment that comforts mentally as well as physically. Here’s a six-pack of their advice:

1. Comfort first. Pick an inviting sofa for the living room in a classic style. If the fabric is neutral, you won’t tire of it. Add colorful accent pillows and a throw. Before you buy, try it out in the showroom. Use it like you will at home. Don’t just sit. Lie down on it. Put your feet up. Want to linger over dinner? Find soft, upholstered chairs for the dining room.

2. Slipcovers reduce stress. You no longer have to panic when the cat has a hairball, a guest spills wine or your kids put their feet up on the furniture. Buy two slipcovers so you can change the look when you change your mood.

3. Limit colors. A room appears less chaotic if you use no more than three or four colors. Pick at least two as accents. Use the prints or stronger colors on pillows or smaller upholstered pieces. Texture adds additional interest. Chenille. Leather. Linen. Washed denim. Distressed wood.

4. Celebrate imperfections. Distressed furniture already has dings and marks so you won’t panic if Bradford drops his toy on the table. Slipcovers should be soft. Consider wrinkles a good thing.

5. Things you love. Your home should reflect who you are and what you love. Photos of family and friends. Collections of favorite things. But don’t get carried away with too much stuff. Editing what you display makes rooms appear larger and what you do feature look more important.

6. Balance your decor. Rooms that make us feel comfortable are often designed to balance furnishings, architectural elements and colors. When you add something to a room, consider how it fits in with the size and color of other elements. Make sure the room doesn’t look too crowded. Allow floor space for walking and clear surfaces that allow the eye to rest.

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PICTURE YOURSELF IN THEIR COMFORT ZONE

It’s no wonder that fans of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams furniture range from average folks to celebrities such as Al and Tipper Gore, Eva Longoria, Rosie O’Donnell and David Hyde Pierce.

In the 17 years that Gold and Williams have been in the furniture business together, they have taught traditional companies run by the good old boys in North Carolina some common sense lessons. They tested pillow fillings by putting them on concrete floors and asking folks to sit on them. They padded the arms of sofas more heavily because they watched women shoppers feel the arms. But most of all, they produced furniture that makes people feel comfortable.

For those who love the look but don’t know how to put it together, their first book, “Let’s Get Comfortable: How to Furnish and Decorate a Welcoming Home” (Meredith Books, $34.95), is the perfect road map to enter the comfort zone. It was written in collaboration with Mindy Drucker, Gold’s sister-in-law.

A couple of things set this 216-page book apart from other decorating primers.

It’s personal. There are photos of Gold and Williams as children, as well as pictures of their homes. They also asked folks who work with them to pose with their fave piece of furniture.

It’s pet friendly. Not only is their mascot and pet bulldog Lulu in many of the photos, they quote her. “Something my daddies taught me: Making yourself comfortable is one thing, but knowing how to make others comfortable is a really special thing.” – Lulu, at home in North Carolina, 1997.

It’s readable. Photography tells most of the story. Accompanying words are short and specific. When a room is shown, readers learn how to achieve the look and why it works.

It’s versatile. They show how the same living room can be transformed into three different looks – Slipcover Heaven, A Little Bit L.A. and Soft + Modern – illustrated with floor plans and photographs.

It’s easy to understand. One of the most difficult topics – how to balance a room – is illustrated by 12 pictures of Gold and Williams putting a room together piece by piece. Short captions explain the design principles. This montage is equivalent to HGTV video in photographs.

It’s flea market friendly. Gold and Williams decorate their homes with flea market finds and they provide a 10-step primer to help the reader enjoy the treasure hunt.

“Let’s Get Comfortable” proves that Gold, the businessman, and Williams, the designer, share a philosophy as well as a successful $100 million furniture business. This primer on comfort is a must-have for everyone, from those decorating their first apartment to empty nesters.

source : www.belleville.com By Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub