Meet Dan Vickery, The Winner of Bravo's Best Room Wins Episode Seven
After watching episode four of Best Room Wins—which featured a ‘transitional’ design theme—it’s safe to say that sometimes, the more oxymoronic the style the better. Enter: modern rustic. Hard on nature, but minimal and clean, modern rustic fuses cozy charm with a contemporary sensibility, making it the perfect choice for people who simply want the best of both worlds. Marked by a relaxed palette, rich texture, and materials like wood, stone, and aged metal, it offers an informal elegance that can stand the test of time. Stepping up to the plate this week are Jinnie Choi and Dan Vickery, two Los Angeles-based designers who have been designing professionally for over a decade. “Modern rustic is tricky because you have rustic, which connects to nature, and modern, which is highly minimalist. There’s a fine line between those two styles,” says judge and host Genevieve Gorder.
Molly Sims—actress, model, and lifestyle enthusiast behind her renowned namesake brand—served as this week’s guest judge. Sims is known for her understated, “everyday” kind of elegance, whose brand covers everything from wellness to fashion to entertaining and homemaking. Dan Vickery, the winner of this week’s episode, learned the basic principles of design—from construction and carpentry to color and textiles—through growing up on a farm and working at his family’s quilt shop.
We got the chance to catch up with Dan following his win, and hear more about what it took for him to craft the winning room.
ELLE DECOR: Tell us a little bit about your design style, and how that helped guide your modern rustic creation.
DAN VICKERY: I refer to my personal style as Modern History. I love walking into a space that already has a story, but requires some updating. I like to highlight the best features of a room to showcase its past. It could be great floors, a fireplace, architectural details, and so on. Then I contrast and highlight these features against more clean and modern design. The result is a style that has history and layers.
The history of modern rustic is in the texture and materials and highlighting specifically rustic elements and contrasting them against a simple modern mix of pieces.
ED: The modern rustic design style, to some, may sound like an oxymoron. What are some ways in which you strike a balance between the two aesthetics?
DV: Modern Rustic can be achieved in many different ways. Matt and Robin didn't like the intensely rustic elements of the inspiration house, like live edge wood slabs or antlers. While I do love high contrast, I was able to create a calmer space for them by focusing on materials. The coffee table is a great example of something with a modern form and rustic touch. I tried to keep that thread running throughout the design. The console under the TV has a very minimalistic shape, but the material is distressed steel. Hide pillows on the leather chairs are Tibetan fur, but dyed a modern color. The chairs themselves are a modern shape, but leather and suede push the rustic feel.
ED: Do you think that having grown up on a farm, you’re able to create more authentically rustic spaces?
DV: I definitely have a knowledge and respect for materials that started at a young age. Growing up on a farm, I learned the basics of carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, and welding. That much exposure teaches you how materials can interact and be manipulated. It also gave me the courage to purchase an oversized hutch and know that I could make it work to my advantage.
ED: How does it feel to have won?
DV: [This show] is set up to push the limits of the competitors, and it was very satisfying to prove to Genevieve, and the audience, that I've listened and grown as a designer. It was especially satisfying to have that occur in front of Whitney Robinson. His knowledge and taste are top of the field. Molly Sims was icing on the cake.
Take a look below for the before & after shots of both contestants' rooms:
JINNIE CHOI (LEFT) AND DAN VICKERY (RIGHT)
What was once a dark, cramped, unfinished den is now a sexy and sophisticated area to unwind. By painting the wall paneling white and the beams a rich charcoal, ripping out the carpet and replacing it with hardwood, and adding in sleek furniture and custom accents, Dan was able to reimagine the space and create a unifying, modern rustic theme. "I loved what he did with all the detail, it adds so much value," Sims said. Dan's expertise was immediately apparent and meticulously thoughtful, with an intelligent layout that gave the room a new life, and a new purpose. "Bringing the two spaces together so they could act as one space and still support Robin’s desk and need to work from home was my biggest success," Dan says. "Color, pattern, and furniture layout allowed this to happen." The resulting space was acutely on theme, and totally timeless, with rich earth tones and a thoughtful balance of materials and texture. He glided graciously along the aforementioned "fine line," with a room that earned him a well-deserved win.
"This was another close one! Recreating a room for $25,000, inspired by a modern rustic lair straight out of James Bond (really!), is no easy feat and both James and Jinnie handled the task with aplomb," says ELLE Decor Editor-in-Chief and judge Whitney Robinson. "I was blown away by Jinnie’s mammoth and gorgeous fireplace, but it was Dan’s meticulous attention to detail (props for the brass detail on the ceiling beams!) and his mastery of space plan and scale in a small space that won me over."
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