Are you hungry for design inspiration? HomePop’s Designer Spotlight Session is breaking down the inspiration behind the featured designers in this season’s One Room Challenge Fall ‘21 reveals!  The One Room Challenge® is an online design event with media partner Better Homes & Gardens wherein interior design influencers completely transform a room of their choice and share their progress with followers excited about design. Follow the official IG for the ORC's @oneroomchallenge!

Train your designer and catch up with our earlier interviews!

• Building Bright & Joyful Spaces with Natalie Papier
• A Moody She Shed Fit For A Queen with Carmona Ursula

Designer Spotlight: Danielle Kate Gutelli

Do you like to mix unlikely elements in a space? Do you love to see interior design styles collide into totally unique spaces? If so, you’ll love this week’s featured designer for our HomePop Designer Spotlight Session. Sink into a true harmonious fusion of unlikely design elements and find out how Danielle reimagined the look and feel of a traditional meditation room.  

What elements define your specific design style?

For me, those elements are keeping a balance between the size of the space, how your eyes are drawn into the room through vertical or horizontal lines, paying close attention to the shape of each material and object placed in the room, while keeping note of both the natural and man-made lighting that will set the mood. Texture always plays a significant role in my design as this helps create movement and life. Every room I design works with color in some capacity. Often I find clients can be hesitant to use color in their home, but I feel this is a beautiful way to bring personality to spaces. The last part of my design always incorporates patterns. When these design elements work together you have a truly cohesive and aesthetically pleasing space.

View HomePop Ashby Accent Chair - Navy Textured Velvet

What are some of your biggest inspirations?

Some of my biggest inspirations are found through Instagram. I absolutely love how those tiny squares connect people together. Watching other women I have met become successful in their passion is always inspiring. 

Do you consider aestheticism or functionality to be more important in the spaces you design? Why? Did you ever have to compromise one for the other?

Everything I design starts with functionality and purpose. I want to show clients how they can truly love a space and their home by capitalizing on the way their family functions in their home and giving the room true purpose. This does not ever impact the aesthetics because when you lead with functionality you can add the aesthetic into the space.

What stuck out to you about the HomePop furniture pieces you used in your ORC design and why?

The two pieces I selected from HomePop drew me in with their color, texture, shape and pattern. I love how both pieces are uniquely different yet work well together in the same space. The sleek lines and modern silhouette of the Ashby accent chair caught my eye first. I love the velvet textured fabric and how unexpected it is. While the angled brassed legs provide an elegant finish. The HomePop Modern sherpa storage bench is the best of both worlds having both function and purpose! We plan to use this to store extra throw blankets in because you can never have too many of those! 

How did you gain your following in IG and what do you want people to most recognize about you as a designer?

My personal page started many years ago when I was honestly just looking for a way to connect with other women. Through my engagement on the account my audience grew. However, over the past several years I have shifted my attention off my personal page to the brand page. I want others to see how incredible Clark + Aldine is and how we continue to grow and evolve together! If I had to pick one thing I would want people to recognize about me as a designer is that I am authentic. I want each of the spaces I design to bring me joy but for my clients to fall in love with their home all over again. Each space has to be authentic to the human who gets to experience life in it!