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Posted on: March 24, 2011

Feather Your Nest

Try these insider tips on decorating with popular bird-themed motifs

By Dawn Klingensmith
CTW Features

It started with a painting of a bird on a flowerpot and grew to include everything from pushpins to a paper towel holder. Now, Leanne Scott Brown’s assortment of bird-themed decor is so vast and varied that a friend teasingly dubbed her “the bird lady.”

That moniker would make more sense, perhaps, if Brown had a passion or even a particular fondness for the winged creatures.

She doesn’t.

“It’s not that I’m a big bird lover and went out and bought all this bird-themed-stuff,” says Brown, of Jenkintown, Pa. “It’s just that retailers are offering it more. There’s all this bird stuff to choose from.”

Indeed, there is: “Birds are currently very popular in a range of interior design products from wallpapers and fabrics to accessories, vases, clocks and pillows,” says Charlotte, N.C.-based interior designer Laura Casey.

Bird decor abounds at retailers like Jayson Home & Garden, West Elm, Pottery Barn and Pier One. The catalog company Collections Inc. offers close to 100 items featuring birds, and with the approach of spring, sales are taking off, according to CEO Todd Lustbader.

Ironically, economic doldrums might be driving those sales, says Lustbader: “In tough times like these, perhaps people are yearning for a little lift, not to mention a little whimsy.”

Beyond their seasonality and symbolism this time of year, birds have staying power as part of a back-to-nature movement in home design.

“The natural element of them is appealing as consumers are more focused on products based on nature and timeless characteristics,” Casey says. “Birds are seeing a resurgence because they can be done in a modern or traditional way.”

While abstract or stylized bird silhouettes and modish owls are trendy right now, birds are a classic design element used for centuries on textiles and china. Bird hieroglyphs even graced the walls of our cave-dwelling ancestors.

“This kind of trend is really no surprise at all given that we as humans have been fascinated by birds for tens of thousands of years,” says Graham Chisholm, vice president of the National Audubon Society. “Birds are the one form of wildlife that nearly everyone sees every day, whether they live in the city or the country. Birds just represent so much for us.”

Brightly colored birds adorn majolica glazed pottery dating to the 16th century, and birds populate Persian rugs from the 1800s.

“The renewed interest in birds may stem from the wide variety of species and, more important, the vivid colors that prevail in those different species,” says San Francisco-based interior designer Warren Sheets. “Birds can be seen in most any color imaginable, which makes a great foundation from which to develop a color scheme.”

While Brown, our accidental “bird lady,” never seeks out birds on purpose, other people design entire rooms around a bird’s plumage or search high and low for the perfect specimen to use as a finishing touch.

Sheets has stenciled birds onto high-end cabinetry and has also carved miniature birds out of wood to use as lamp finials.

Los Angeles-based interior designer Mary McDonald likes to use taxidermy birds ¬– especially peacocks – to add a pop of color to a room.

Brown springs for original oil paintings and lined a fancy birdcage from Pottery Barn with snow-white feathers, so not all her bird-themed items look mass-produced and certainly not cutesy collectibles.

“It’s tastefully done,” Brown says.

But how fine is the line between bird lady and loon?

“I advise against going bird-mad – ‘the more, the merrier’ is not necessarily true with birds,” Sheets says. “Being a special element is far more important than being a repetitive element, which holds true with any object or iconic element in an interior.”

To be on the safe side, “Choose any bird decorative object or motif that blends in with your decor rather than makes a bold statement,” says interior designer Janet Davidsen of Details In Design Inc. in Wheaton, Ill.

“There is so much bird decor on the market, select bird colors you already have in your home to narrow down your choices.

“That way, when you look around the room, the bird becomes another surprise element that unfolds in the space and will also stand the test of time.”