This Home Office is a Little Bit Rock and Roll

Using a rich palette of dark blues, grays, and tans, interior designer Christina Roughan renovated this New Canaan home office into a multipurpose room that includes cozy sitting areas for overflow party guests, a wall covered with photos of rock and roll icons who have inspired the guitar-playing owner, and a desk for getting work done.

As Roughan explains, “Strong imagery mixed with textures and a wood-veneer coffered ceiling help create a calm yet powerful presence, while numerous decorative small pieces, such as the KleinReid ceramic vase on the coffee table, resonate with the interior.”

A vintage Debbie Harry black-and-white poster, found at a flea market, crowns a fireplace painted, like the rest of the room, Benjamin Moore Gray in a satin finish.

Roughan designed the walnut desk and redesigned the bookcase, which houses an egg sculpture by Sergio Bustamante, to include the same Phillip Jeffries wallcovering found on the ceiling.

Barware sourced from Roughan Home includes a 1960s Aldo Tura deep-green parchment barware set as well as a 1920s art deco malachite vase.

The client’s guitar collection inspired the room’s theme.

“It was a big white box, a big white boring box.” That’s how interior designer Christina Roughan describes the home office her New Canaan client asked her to transform into a multipurpose room. He wanted a combination office and sitting room that would be more comfortable and reflect his myriad interests and tastes. “It needed some personality and that was a challenge that excited both of us,” remembers Roughan, who had completed several other interior design projects at the client’s traditional Georgian home.

Where to start? “The first thing I noticed in his office was a collection of exquisite guitars that were stacked up against a wall,” says Roughan. “When I asked him if he played, his eyes lit up, and he told me he did. Then he added that he’d even been in a rock and roll band years ago. Bingo! I had my design theme.”

After agreeing on a color palette of cozy, rich, deep grays, blues, and tans, Roughan suggested that the formerly empty walls be covered with a selection of black-and-white photographs of musicians that appealed to her client. “He loved the idea,” says Roughan, who also boasts musical roots: she sang with the New York City-based funk-rock band Swelter in the 1990s.

Roughan sent the homeowner loads of portraits to choose from, and he settled on a who’s who of rock and roll legends, from Keith Richards and Slash to Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and, in pride of place over the new Saint Laurent honed-marble fireplace, Debbie Harry. “I told him, ‘You have to have at least one woman in here,’ ” says Roughan, her green eyes twinkling.

To make the room more than an office, Roughan chose all new furniture, including a pair of midcentury modern chairs to create a cozy seating area by the renovated fireplace and low-back couches that don’t block the windows. “It’s really become a multipurpose room,” says the designer. “It’s his office, a place for guests to enjoy a quiet drink during parties, and a room where he can shut the door, pick up one of his guitars, kick back, and wail away.”