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Angela Wilson Lee
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The living room rug inspired the color palette and pattern that Wilson Lee used throughout her house.
At a young age, Angela Wilson Lee was drawn to the power of creating beautiful living spaces through small changes.
When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Wilson Lee wanted to find a way to help her family. As the oldest of her siblings, she took up the responsibility of helping around the house. She quickly developed an interest in decorating, taking on DIY upholstery projects, creating floral arrangements of dandelions and other flowers grown in her mother’s garden and framing her own artwork on the walls.
“She enjoyed my creativity,” Wilson Lee says of her late mother, whom she credits with sparking her passion for interior design. “I was trying to help around the house, and she made it seem like … every little thing I did was the most wonderful thing. I realized that you can really make people really happy by making their spaces better.”
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The bold colors in the mosaic tile backsplash were pulled from the living room palette.
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Wilson Lee likes to mix more modern elements in a traditional environment, giving the design more longevity.
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Architectural boxes were added to the dining room walls to balance the space between the wainscoting and the tray ceiling.
Now, Wilson Lee is making big moves. Her interior design studio, Wilson Lee Interiors, specializes in residential and commercial design, with her portfolio ranging from cozy familial homes to spaces for higher education. At the center of Wilson Lee’s design philosophy are three pillars: clarity, balance and beauty. The designer says she strives to create spaces that are as functional as they are aesthetically pleasing.
When Wilson Lee moved into her Chesterfield home in 2020, she applied these principles and didn’t hold back. The repetition of geometric shapes and angles throughout the home mingles with bold colors and patterns, creating a distinctive, multidimensional atmosphere. These visually layered textures extend to the layered meanings behind Wilson Lee’s designs, with some pieces carrying a deeper significance than what appears on the surface. This added perspective creates excitement, allowing guests to discover new meanings and focal points each time they enter a room.
Wilson Lee mixes traditional, contemporary and transitional pieces alike, all sourced from her studio’s interior design showroom. The traditional cherry wood cabinets in the kitchen — an original feature of the home — are accented by modern hardware, and classic upholstered chairs sit by large pieces of contemporary art. For Wilson Lee, the interaction between different styles gives the home a classic feel, allowing for longevity in its design.
Aside from aesthetics, Wilson Lee incorporated functional pieces to add a sense of clarity to the space. “Part of the clarity piece is organization,” she explains. “Having things that will help facilitate [organization] makes life better for everybody.”
This takes several forms in the home, from spacious mirrored storage cabinets featured in the dining room to opting for a circular table in the kitchen to allow for better mobility along tighter walkways. Perhaps the most ingenious feature was the addition of a “pot filler” at the kitchen coffee station; this water spout allows avid coffee drinkers in the family to easily refill the coffee maker without making several trips to and from the kitchen sink.
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Wilson Lee’s home office is textbook pattern play, inspired by the square studs on the drapery panels.
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Throughout the house, Wilson Lee mixed color, texture and pattern to add dimension.
The balance of shapes plays a big role throughout the home. “When this house was built, they put in a lot of arches,” Wilson Lee says. “I wanted to bring some squares and some angles in the space so that the right amount of balance would be there.”
Large arched windows and circular accents are paired with boxy, rectangular tables, couches and artwork, creating an air of stability in the home.
This feeling is heavily evoked in the study, where square patterns appear in the artwork, rug and drapes, complemented by a circular chandelier to offset the sharp angles. “I purposely did a lot of squares in this room, because I wanted it to feel a little bit more like an office without having to go through the ordeal of putting applied moldings to the wall,” she explains.
The changing color palettes used in the home serve as a subtle thread between rooms, guiding the eye effortlessly through each space without using identical palettes. “I wanted to maintain the interest as you go from space to space ,without having copycats,” Wilson Lee says.
“I realized that you can really make people really happy by making their spaces better.” —Angela Wilson Lee
To complement the teal stripes of a French bergere chair and ottoman in the living room, Wilson Lee added velvet teal chairs in the adjacent dining room. Elements of gold seen in the living room couch are also mirrored in the gold furnishings, and framed peacock paintings hung proudly in the dining room.
“I fell in love with peacocks,” Wilson Lee recalls. “My aunt and my uncle took me in after my mom died, and [my aunt’s] brother had peacocks. In my mind, I would say if a peacock … spreads their feathers, it means that my mom is paying attention.”
Drawing inspiration from the peacock’s train of tail feathers, Wilson Lee added cascading chandeliers, feather-like wallpaper and layered wall sconces to her design. The interaction of these pieces serves as a homage to her mother, creating beauty and meaning beyond the surface.
