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" Babe Paley was a regular customer, and interior designer Bunny Williams was so smitten with his good taste that she married him. Almost 60 years after John Rosselli opened his first shop in Manhattan, he presides over a thriving home furnishings empire that includes stores and showrooms filled with antiques, accessories, fabric, reproduction furniture, and lighting. In his charmingly diverse world, 18th-century chests mix with rusted barn siding, and inexpensive hurricane lamps mingle with Chinese porcelain. &amp;quot;Nothing makes me happier,&amp;quot; Rosselli says, &amp;quot;than finding some great, unusual, and amusing thing.&amp;quot; Early Years \u2022 I was born on a farm in New Jersey, the youngest of 14 children. I had chores to do: I fed the chickens, made sure the animals had water. You had to fill the cow trough with a hand pump.  \u2022 In the 1950s, I moved to New York and got a job with four Venetian brothers. They were mad: the Marx brothers of the furniture business. They taught me everything about restoring furniture, from gold-leafing to marbleizing. We splashed and sponged\u2014the wilder, the better.  \u2022 In my early 20s, I opened my own shop on Second Avenue. There were dogs and a seven-foot-high birdcage filled with live birds. It was a wonderful world then. I got to know Billy Baldwin, Albert Hadley, and all the lady decorators like Sister Parish and Eleanor Brown. I met my wife when she was working for Parish-Hadley. There was no fooling around with Bunny. She was always decisive.  Mix and Match  \u2022 I&amp;#039;m known for a truly eclectic mixture of furniture and objects. I buy what I like. It all comes together.  \u2022 I like furniture to have a little extra kick to it\u2014a Portuguese influence on an English chair, or Irish furniture, which is a little bit flamboyant and cavalier. A wonderful midcentury coffee table, a fantastic mirror, or a pair of klismos chairs can be incorporated into any setting.  \u2022 Bring accessories from any part of the house and put them on the dining room table. Line up four or five blue-and-white vases and fill them with daisies. Go to Chinatown and buy Asian soup bowls, each one a different pattern, and place them on top of white china. Combine your grandmother&amp;#039;s china with contemporary plates. Mix and match.  Five Decorating Essentials  \u2022 A pair of side chairs. Put them on either side of a console or chest of drawers. Don&amp;#039;t go for the obvious\u2014a pair of spindly Victorian chairs beside an antique chest. Instead, try a couple of cane-backed contemporary ones. It&amp;#039;s a wonderful look.  \u2022 A good mirror, unusual and oversize. Don&amp;#039;t be afraid of scale\u2014take it right up to the ceiling. It elevates a room.  \u2022 Sconces. Go to Crate &amp;amp;amp; Barrel\u2014they have wonderful bronze ones.  \u2022 A rug. It doesn&amp;#039;t have to be expensive. Try Indian dhurries or plain sisal. A small Oriental on top of sisal is a great look.  \u2022 Candlesticks. Mix five or six kinds\u2014glass, brass, silver\u2014on a table. They don&amp;#039;t have to be in pairs.  Artful Arranging \u2022 I like massing objects. I&amp;#039;m known for blue-and-white porcelain. A group of boxes\u2014small, large\u2014looks great on a table. At our house in Punta Cana, we collect white porcelain objects\u2014ducks, chickens, fruit. Buy things individually, and before you know it you&amp;#039;ve got a collection. \u2022 It&amp;#039;s been years since I&amp;#039;ve recovered a sofa. That&amp;#039;s because I have dogs. I simply wrap chairs and sofa cushions in fabric or in Indian cotton bedspreads. Or buy a sheet that&amp;#039;s the same color as the sofa, wrap it around the cushions, and throw it in the wash when it gets dirty. \u2022 When you travel, bring something back. Turkey is like a treasure chest. I just got back from Lebanon, where I bought blown-glass bottles. \u2022 Treat a garden like a room. Use objects\u2014an urn, a seat, a small table where you can sit and have a drink. I love hurricane lamps. And today they make the most beautiful plastic dinnerware.  \u2022 Layer a cocktail table with objects: a box, candlesticks, a small sculpture. You want to give people something to pick up and fondle. Click here to see John Rosselli&amp;#039;s shop and collections "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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