THE first thing you notice in Krislyn Komarov's 1920s Spanish-style house is what's not there: no blooms sprucing up the night stands, no gerbera daisies in 21-month-old daughter Ava's room, no orchids elevating the entryway. In fact, there's barely a garden beyond a series of trumpet vines lining the side of the house.
Komarov, who owns the floral studio Krislyn Design, may have an all-access pass to the L.A. Flower Mart and charge up to six figures to create hothouse fairyland weddings, but when it came to her own 2,600-square-foot house near the Grove, she cut the floral motif at the root. Hence the empty niches in the living-room office, the glass shelves above the kitchen sink that practically scream for neat rows of African violets, and a dining table that's entirely centerpiece-challenged.
But take a closer look, and Komarov's unconventional take on floral design ("botanical installation," as she refers to it) becomes apparent. Hanging above that dining table, there's a shimmering forest of "mica fairies." That's Komarov's name for dried avocado leaves that she glue-guns to pieces of mica shards and hangs from fishing wire.
"I just started hanging them from a branch that rests on the chandelier, and then I kept going until there were lots," Komarov says. "When heat rises from candle light, it makes them move so it looks like they're flying."
Nearby in the sunken living room, a 7-foot hunk of reclaimed cypress towers above the wooden daybed and hanging chairs. Komarov recently had the tree trunk wired, then she crowned it with a lampshade, turning her passion for all things organic into a mode for lighting.
Perched high on her home office desk, there's the charred manzanita that she plastered with hundreds of tiny mirror fragments. Dubbed the "Narcissus tree," it's typical of her version of permanent botanical installation, the kind that won't fade after five days in water, and the type of creation with enough sculptural appeal to keep her in demand with interior designers such as Kazuko Hashino and James Magni.
"People want creations for big spaces, but they don't necessarily want to water a plant," says Komarov, 38, who in November moved her business from Melrose Avenue to a larger space on nearby 3rd Street. "A lot of my work is about answering that customer."
