If These Walls Could Shout

As a design teacher, Doug Meyer had an exercise he liked to give his students. He would sit in front of the class and describe a room in minute detail – the layout, the finishes, the furnishings – then get the students to draw it.

"What was interesting was that no-one drew the room as it actually was," Doug says, "or at least the way it was in my mind. Everyone had their own interpretation. It's a great exercise, but it's also why I hate explaining something verbally to people. Without a visual reference, without an understanding of history and the language of design, you're just not going to see what's in my head."

Over a 20-year career spanning everything from painting and sculpture to interiors and industrial design, 'What's In My Head' feels like a pretty apt description of Meyer's general vibe. His art has the freewheeling, colour-outside-the-lines immediacy of someone whose imagination is hot-wired directly to their fingers. A handy talent to have.

“I’ve always had this ability, I guess you’d call it an ability, where anytime I’m designing something, I can truly picture the finished product in my mind,”he says. “And when it’s done, 99 percent of the time it looks how I imagined it. Only better.”

I'm chatting to Doug remotely from his one-bedroom apartment in New York's Chelsea Mutual Redevelopment Houses, AKA Penn South, which he shares with his husband, Meade. It's more of a city-based crash pad these days – the couple recently finished building their dream house in Hudson upstate. But for a seven-year stretch, which included the COVID lockdowns, this technicolour oasis was Doug's home.

"I'm really bad with time frames," he says, staring up at the ceiling while counting his fingers, "but yeah I think we bought it seven years ago. And we did a lot. I mean we ripped out the kitchen, tore down three walls, redid all the floors, the closets, a lot of electrical work. The building was built in 1961, and we're in New York City, so you can imagine the condition it was in…"

The third thing people notice about Doug's flat is the layout. It's technically a one-bedroom apartment, but Doug installed a candy-pink "brutalist panel" in the living room to create an even smaller guest room-slash-library space. "I actually hate guests," he laughs, "but yes it's technically there if anyone needs it."

The second thing you notice is the contrasting styles. Doug reads widely and seems to be interested in pretty much everything, which means ornate period armchairs sit comfortably next to abstract sculpture and Jetsonian¹ mid-century lamps. In other words, forget everything you thought you knew about interior design. The rules don't apply in here. No two surfaces are the same, and the overall mashup feels like a really good acid trip – with swatches.

But the first thing people notice is colour. Hold up a colour wheel in Doug's apartment and you won't find many shades that aren't represented somewhere. From cerulean blues to tangerine and mint. Pops of Brat green² and mustard yellow. Coral and liquorice pink. Doug is an artist who, when asked: "Which colours would you like?" will always answer: "Yes". In fact the only colour you'll struggle to find here is grey. For that you need to visit the bedroom.

"The colours in the bedroom are grey, black, blue and pink," Doug says. "And the only reason the bedroom is grey is that my husband likes grey. I very much don't like grey." Feelings expressed in the form of custom wall panels finished in glazed ceramic, which loom above the bed head like a fever dream.

"The good thing about the grey in the bedroom is that I'm mostly asleep in there," he laughs. "And when you're sitting in the bed, you don't have to look at it."

It raises an interesting question. Our homes are often shared spaces, built on compromise and patience and a love that transcends shag carpeting, so what happens when a designer and a very not-designer cohabitate? Who calls the creative shots?

"Meade is a lawyer," Doug says, "And when I first met him, his apartment was… let's just say you'd almost think he was straight. But he actually has a very interesting eye, and I think it's evolved a lot. You know, we'll go to a museum or gallery and I love hearing his take on something.

"Our kitchen tile is blue, for example, he picked that out." Doug chuckles. "It's not what I would have used."

Over the years, Doug and his brother Gene³ have built a somewhat lofty reputation as 'master colourists'; a label that Meyer clearly feels a bit uncomfortable about. His previous New York rental was famously clad in individual pieces of coloured paper – 2,398 sheets at last count – which Doug applied by hand. "It was such a cool space," he says. "The living room and the dining room were these beautiful gradations of stripes. It took forever. But it shows you can create a colourful apartment. Even if you're renting."

Meyer says this reputation for colour mastery might have something to do with his previous address. He grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, but lived in Miami for an "ungodly" number of years (real time: roughly two decades). He exhibited his first solo show there, BOD, in 2003. But when you're a Miami designer who isn't afraid of colour, New York's art scene does like to put you in a certain hot pink box. And Doug finds that box kind of restrictive.

"Miami had this reputation in the '80s and '90s, particularly that art deco district in South Beach, for these pastel colours, those Miami Vice pinks and turquoises. So because we were from Miami, people just assumed anything we did was Miami Colours. 'Oh they're so bright. That's so Miami,' you know. I can't tell you how many times someone's sent me something colourful saying ,'I thought you'd love this', and it's just the ugliest thing you've ever seen in your life."

What's Doug's getting at is that colour is hard. He's literally studied it. For years. You can't just throw colour at something and call it beautiful, in the same way you can't just throw salt at something and call it tasty. And colour combinations that look good in your head don't always work in real life. "Just because something's colourful doesn't mean I'm going to like it, or that it's pretty or quirky or weird. It can just be really bad taste."

Looking around Doug’s Chelsea flat, even an uncultured slob like mecan tell this is not bad taste. It feels deliberate and composed in some intangible, Wonka-esqueway. It might be easy to assume that this harmony happened by accident, or that anyone can makea room ‘colourful’ simply by adding colour. But the truth is a little more complicated.

To extend the food analogy, a good chef knows how to balance dozens of flavours to make something taste good, and an experienced designer knows how to work with light and space to bounce certain colours against each other. It's an instinct honed by time, trial and a lot of error. If a regular human like you or me attempted what Meyer's done here, the result would look ridiculous. Like a crazy person's home. Guests would feel nauseous and politely ask to leave. The fact that Doug's apartment is this colourful and still works is testament to decades of practice (and a hefty double-scoop of natural talent).

"The more you do something the more innate it becomes," he says. "You immediately look at a space and know if it's working or not. And those instincts come from years of experimenting and making mistakes. For me, where I live, that's the place for experimentation. It's like a sculpture or a painting. Once I finish it, it's like, okay that's done. Now I want to change it."

This doesn't mean people shouldn't attempt colour at home. Quite the opposite. Doug says it's a shame that so many of us are afraid of colour, and retreat to the safe shores of beige and white and grey, where every house ends up looking like a Pottery Barn catalogue. Where's the fun in that? Our homes should be a physical manifestation of our insides – our tastes and quirks and deep dark desires – so why do most of us choose to live in a sterile white box?

"Everything looks the same in modern design," Doug says, "and the scary thing is, people seem to be comfortable with that, and they like it, because that's what the Kardashians have or whatever, so that means it's cool.

"And everyone's afraid of colour, which amazes me, because when you're in a room and there's windows and plants outside, or you have sky and grass and water, all those beautiful colours are already coming into your room. But people just go, 'It has to be neutral!'"

Doug doesn't do neutral. He's all about picking a side. And he says the real magic of interior design is that it allows anyone to be creative. Even people who don't traditionally think of themselves that way.

"The thing about all these interior stores is that they're not really showing people how to be creative. They're just trying to make your house look 'pretty'.

"But you have to actually live in these spaces. If it's a rental, you might be living there for a year, or 10 years. If it's your home, that could be your entire life. So maybe you like to collect weird things. Or you like to draw. Or you're attracted to certain styles or furnishings. There are no rules or wrong answers. Just experiment and find out."

Doug's Design Tips

1. Stick to light floors over dark ones if you don't want to spend every waking hour cleaning up scuffs and crumbs. "Dark floors are a real bitch," Doug says. "Any little thing that gets on it, you see it straight away."

2. If you're renovating, start with one room, rather than tackling everything simultaneously. "If you start with a single room, you'll feel confident and inspired. Then you can move onto the next. Break it down in stages."

3. Don't just start buying random furniture and hope for the best. Make a plan. "When I say plan, I mean get yourself some swatches and paint samples and pull everything together. You need to see a physical sample."

4. Measure the crap out of everything. (Doug's words). Rooms work best when the furniture is to scale. "The size of these modern sofas, you can't even get them in the elevator!" Doug says. "They're the size of a car."