Tin-can chic and more at interior design showcase

NEW YORK — Perhaps you would like to enliven your white-box apartment. Have you considered tin-can lids for wall texture?

For the first time in 36 years, the annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House (considered by many to be one of the top showcases for interior design) takes over six condos rather than a single townhouse. The site is Manhattan House, a white-brick, postwar behemoth with some 580 apartments that are being converted into condominiums. Twenty-one designers worked with mostly the same type rooms, with white walls and low ceilings without moldings.

Geoffrey Bradfield's bachelor pad pairs glossy, bright-orange wall coverings by Stark with oversized art by the Spanish team of Caceres + Miranda.

The "Scarlett's Dress" salon designed by Nancy Ruddy was inspired by a Carolina Herrera ball gown.

Other rooms, like "Jewel Box," designed by Ellen Ward Scarborough Ltd., has 1960s-era fonts painted on the floor and a groovy closet displaying vintage accessories.

White Webb styled an L-shaped room as an all-in-one for living, sleeping, working and relaxing. This is where the tin cans come in: Shiny lids cover the bedroom area wall, and the effect is surprisingly serene. A 12th-century statue of the monkey god Hanuman stands in the corner. Moorish and Indian details punctuate the room.

For info or to see images of past show houses, go to (kipsbay.org/showhouse.html).