A sneak peek into the 2015 Decorators’ Show House & Gardens

Where: 4701 Northside Drive, Atlanta, 30327 (shuttles from The Piazza at Paces, 3290 Northside Parkway, Atlanta 30327)

Cost: $30

Info: 404-395-8461, http://decoratorsshowhouse.org/

A family room in the Atlanta Symphony Associates' 2015 Decorators’ Show House & Gardens caught Vern Yip’s attention, just as these spaces capture the eye of homebuyers and owners ready to renovate homes of all sizes.

The HGTV star, who is serving as honorary show house chairman, decided to tackle the design of the family room and adjacent breakfast nook in the 14,500-square-foot Buckhead estate known as “Château Soleil,” designed in 1998. Yip, a part-time Atlanta resident, hopes visitors to the 45th annual decorators’ show house, which begins April 18 and is a spring tradition for some Atlantans, will be inspired to make spaces that are functional and comfortable, yet elegant.

“I love my house to look beautiful, I love it to look sophisticated,” he said. “At the same time I need it to be super functional and super practical for my family.”

This year’s event features 28 returning and first-time show house designers from around the Southeast, including students from The Art Institute of Atlanta.

“Show houses are such a great inspirational, and believe it or not, economical way to really learn about design and learn about what’s happening in the world of design in terms of trends,” Yip said. “Even if you live in the tiniest studio apartment, there are still plenty of tips you can pick up.”

Here are three things to learn from the show house:

1. You can work with existing color.

The home’s nickname comes from its sunny palette, inside and out, which was chosen by the original owners to accentuate the architecture and serve as a backdrop for the flowers.

“For all of us who are designers working on the show house, the challenge is to balance out the yellow a little bit,” Yip said.

A second HGTV host involved in the show house, Chip Wade, said his design for the front terrace and side kitchen patio will soften the home’s palette and ornate style without fighting it.

“It has a very bold and stately appearance,” he said. “Oftentimes I don’t necessarily like to just always fall 100 percent in line with the theme of the house. I want to accentuate more of the layout and to complement the architecture, but subtly.”

Wade, a native Atlantan and owner of a design-build firm, said the layout of the Frontgate and custom furniture will offset the symmetrical design and massive entryway.

“Sometimes, larger spaces are more complicated to make comfortable,” he said. “You need to work in conversation settings.”

Yip said he’s often asked how to differentiate one room from the next in an open floor plan. Using different paint colors can break up the rooms, and in the family room he selected Benjamin Moore’s Newburyport Blue with custom patterned rugs by Milliken (through Myers Carpet in Atlanta) in chocolate and taupe.

2. You can mix styles.

How Yip and other designers update the dated interior could inspire homeowners moving into existing homes.

“It really reflected a style of design that was pretty prevalent decades ago. You picked one style and you ran with it and there wasn’t room for anything else,” he said. “It’s not practical. It’s not who we are as people. It’s not how anybody lives.”

The designers are mixing styles and bringing in items that are old and new, to freshen up the decor.

For the laundry room, designer Jessica Bradley she said wanted to transform what was a dreaded work space into a happy place. She repainted the white cabinets with dark gray and green tones and replaced the blue laminate countertops with quartz. A blue and white backsplash with a rooster motif was replaced with Waterworks’ Grove Brickworks in blue. The blue and white wallpaper was replaced with grass cloth wallpaper, said Bradley, owner of Jessica Bradley Interiors.

The size of rooms sometime stumps homeowners, and designers faced the same challenge with the Buckhead estate’s staggering spaces and soaring ceilings. The home has six bedrooms (the master and a guest bedroom are on the main level) and seven full and four half baths.

“We’re having to be creative with our furniture placement,” said Robert Brown of Robert Brown Interior Design. “If you just threw a bed beside a chest and dresser, it would get lost. The challenge is to make large spaces feel intimate.”

In the “gargantuan” master bedroom, which is about 20 by 30 feet, a canopy bed felt appropriate. The traditional bedroom, which has a fireside sitting area, adjoins the “his” master bathroom, with walls upholstered in gray flannel and dark woods.

3. You can see how designers embrace existing architecture.

For the fourth time, a home designed by William T. Baker, founder of William T. Baker & Associates, an Atlanta-based residential design firm, is featured as the show house. Hosting more than 12,000 visitors is the “maximum test on a house’s floor plan,” he said. “This house is going to function beautifully as a show house. What everybody is going to see is that the house has aged very nicely. I’ll be really excited to see how they freshen the house up.”

The symmetrical facade features French doors and transoms that match the proportions of the 12-foot and higher ceilings on the main level. One of the most special features, Baker said, is the 26-foot domed marble entrance. The placement of the dining room at the rear of the home was ahead of the outdoor-living trend and allows people to migrate from the room to the terraced garden with a pool.

Yip said architectural elements in the family room he is designing include arches above windows that were hidden behind valances, which Yip removed to bring in the views of the backyard. The room will feature draperies and upholstery from his fabrics line through Calico Corners.

“I’m doing simpler treatments that really let the light in,” he said. “If you want dark and gloomy, I am so not your guy. I love natural light.”