Instagram Stories: Brian Paquette

Interior designer Brian Paquette at work in a recent installation. Portrait by Marisa Maharaj. All other photos by @brianpaquetteinteriors.

If anyone can convince us to change our Technicolor ways, it's Brian Paquette. The Seattle-based designer uses the dusty, rainy-day hues of his Pacific Northwest surroundings to create nuanced interiors with both polish and soul. “It's gray here nine months of the year,” he says. “What I have learned is that if you fight nature, you lose. Use what is outside and build on that.” The look is well represented on his Instagram feed, where pattern and texture are bathed in ethereal light. Read on for a sneak peek behind the curtain. 

ON INSTAGRAM

“Social media has changed everything for better and for worse. I have never been so close to new ideas, new designers, and inspiring people of all types showing me places I have yet to go. It can be overwhelming, but you have to filter it all. Just like work, I shoot from the hip—things come up and I share. I try to capture what is going on in my mind as I process a design, from inspiration to completed project. You'll see me pouring through new books, taking photos of textures and light, patterns, drawings, or mood boards for a project and then the completed room. I like to go back and see if the dots connect or how I was inspired. A good photo to me, says a lot. I want to take one instead of five.”

ON DESIGN

“I love that it is never done. There is always something new, and there are no rules. We always try to dissect or get to the route of the client's life—how they tick, what their references are, how they want to live—to be able to create it for them, in such a way that we inspire them to go even further. Trust and experimentation are key elements here. I think it's less about a type of space and more about a like-mindedness about the goals and potential of the space that is important. We will design a phone booth if the project is interesting and pushes boundaries.”

ON the
emerald city

“Seattle will always march by the beat of its own drum—somewhat under the radar while others take notice from a far. There is a secret thirst for more design and more forward thinking here, and I am doing my best to promote it as much as possible and keep the conversation going. I am originally from Rhode Island and can't even compare the two, but I like the differences and referencing things from the East in our work in the West. I take ideas from both, such as the formal ways rooms are laid out on the East Coast with more casual furniture lines, styles, and textures that are found in the West.”

ON aspirations

“I cannot deny how much Nate Berkus has inspired me both aesthetically and in a business sense. I love how you can look back at all of his published homes and see a lot of the same pieces used in very different ways in new settings. He loves everything and it shows; he carries his life and memories with him. I also admire what he's done in terms of getting people all over the country and world excited about making their homes something special. That's the goal right?”