IT'S COMPLICATED: INTERIOR DECOR BREAKDOWN
This is the movie interior that officially turned the Nancy Meyers style into a recognizable decorating phenomenon.
After It’s Complicated came out, the look became a full-blown interior-design obsession — and, years later, Nancy Meyers style is still very much a thing.
So let’s go inside the house.
For a while now, my movie-location rabbit hole has included actual addresses, too. The single-story Spanish-style house that plays Jane’s home in Santa Barbara is actually located at 714 West Potrero Road in Thousand Oaks, California.
Several other scenes were filmed in New York. Jane’s café, for example, was built inside the boathouse pavilion in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I used to walk past it almost everyday when I lived in New York an di had no idea!
We’ll come back to the exterior at the end, because there are plenty of beautiful details outside too — from the garden where Jane grows vegetables and herbs to the outdoor dining area, perfect for long al fresco dinners.
But first: the kitchen.
This is probably the room from It’s Complicated that has been shared, pinned, and recreated the most. And honestly, look at it. There is so much going on here, and somehow every single detail feels delicious.
The black metal pendant lights were designed by Paul Ferrante and are still being sold as the THEO Pendant Fixture by Paul Ferrante. They can still be found online, including secondhand.
If you’re simply looking for the same visual effect, search for black metal cone-shaped pendant lights.
And then there are the porcelain artichokes sitting all the way up on the highest shelf.
A lot of people noticed them — probably because they manage to be surprisingly visible even from across the room.
The originals used in the movie were by Carolle Stupell, but similar pieces are easy to find from other brands. Try searching for artichoke decor in ivory distressed finish.
The house also has quite a lot of marble: on the kitchen island, then the green marble coffee table in the living room, and in the bathrooms.
The island itself was designed by Robert Ogden with a custom marble top. For something similar, try searching for kitchen island with cast iron legs and marble top. I’ve seen an almost identical copy in Pottery Barn.
The oval dining table is another antique piece from Lucca Antiques. A similar shape can be found by searching for oval dining table with rounded ends made of distressed gray wood.
But the chairs around the dining table are particularly interesting.
In an interview, set decorator Bette Rubino, who frequently worked with Nancy Meyers, explained that she created the chairs from a prototype she had spotted in a photograph, with help from Berkshire Home & Antiques, an antique shop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
She also admitted that it was one of her favorite places to shop for antiques.
The chair became so popular after the movie that it was eventually produced under the name It’s Complicated Chair. They’re made to order and sold as a set for around $14,000.
You obviously don’t need to spend that much to get the look. A chair with a similar silhouette can be found by searching for ebony wooden armchair with cane seat.
Then there are those gorgeous orange and tomato-red accents.
The upholstery was custom-made through Calvin Fabrics — including the fabric used on the kitchen chair cushions, specifically called Donghia — and George Smith Furniture & Fabrics, which according to multiple sources supplied the orange armchair and ottoman in the living room.
These two sources provided much of the textile used throughout the film.
The brief was essentially: natural fabrics and textures that would make the house feel like a warm, lived-in little home somewhere in Belgium. And that tells you a lot about why this interior feels the way it does.
For a much easier version of the look, try searching for orange seat cushions with strings.
The white slipcovers, according to the same source, came from ready-made furniture and decor retailers. Pottery Barn is an obvious place to look for this kind of furniture, along with other retailers specializing in slipcovered pieces, like SureFit.
Bette Rubino also talked to Traditional Home about mixing expensive and accessible pieces throughout the house. Calvin Fabrics, Dessin Fournir, George Smith Furniture, and 1stDibs antiques were mixed with more accessible brands such as West Elm.
Before we leave this beautiful kitchen, let’s make a little shopping/searching list.
These are the details that do a surprising amount of work when you want to recreate this kind of Nancy Meyers atmosphere at home:
Hanging pot rack or kitchen rail bar
Glass dome with wooden tray
Stoneware ceramics
Potted herbs
Utensil crock
Roman shades
Copper pots and pans
Fruit bowl
Antique water pitcher
Kitchen counter mini lamp
And the coffee-table books? The spines are visible in the photo below, so I’ll let you investigate those yourself.
Now let’s look at the rest of the house.
Jane’s bedroom has even more of what makes this interior so distinctly Nancy Meyers: beautiful textiles in warm colors, antique furniture, and that slightly imperfect mix of old and new.
The bench at the foot of the bed looks very similar to one later used in another Nancy Meyers movie, Home Again, where a nearly identical piece appeared in the hallway.
That film also touched on another little decorating trick that shows up frequently in beautiful movie interiors: asymmetry. Instead of matching everything perfectly, designers here used different shapes and styles of nightstands on either side of a bed.
You may have already noticed another recurring detail in the living room: all those lamps with distressed wood bases and linen shades. There are plenty of similar options online. Try searching for distressed wood base table lamp with linen shade.
For a similar English-style chest of drawers, try English chest with brass cup pulls.
According to the Set Decorators Society of America, much of the furniture used in the film came from antique dealers including Berkshire Home & Antiques, Treillage Antiques, and Cupboards & Roses Antiques.
Even if you’re not looking for the exact pieces, these are excellent places to browse when you want to understand where that particular Nancy Meyers mix of antiques, textiles, and everyday objects comes from.
And then, of course, there are the Roman shades.
They appear in almost every Nancy Meyers movie for a reason. The ones in It’s Complicated look very similar to pieces you can find at West Elm, which has a huge range of Roman shades in different colors and levels of light filtering.
And since we’ve made it all the way to the bathroom: the hairbrush sitting on the vanity looks remarkably similar to the Aveda Wooden Paddle Hairbrush.
And finally, let’s step outside. Just for the vibe.
