Interior Design is like any other art form…is such a personal expression. Some create their homes with basic needs in mind, they look at their home simply as a shelter or a refuge from the world. A home that is gathered with family items usually pieces that are dated and well past the “normal” wear and tear usage. Then you have those that like to decorate with a very status quo esthetic. Their homes have that “hey…look I like to shop at all the same place’s that everybody else does so that I don’t look too showy or pretentious.”
The final category are for those that like to have their homes be the “over stylized glamourized emporium’s”. Their room’s are usually a showplace that says…”hey look at me I’m a success!” They represent a certain taste level that either the designer felt was appropriate at the time it was created, or perhaps they were thinking “this is what I liked when I walked into the closest furniture showroom”.
Those who usually DIY-it…usually feel that their taste is so much better than any “designer” can come up with-and have a great deal of pride knowing that they saved a lot of money too. Perhaps thinking “not only I’m a designer-but I’m smart too!”
Furniture showroom’s or design studios can be very beautiful and attention grabbing, we all can be captivated by a beautiful room they can be very inspiring. So whether your style is slick and modern with a need for minimalism, or high traditional with a wide selection of fabrics with trims, pillow collections, and ginger jars. I feel true interior design is a collection of elements that can literally be a 3D piece of art and like with all art-it is subjective. Because what I like…someone else may despise.
So what separates good design from bad? Well…that is the age old question. It’s not that creating a basic room with pretty things is bad design. Determining good design is more of a question of how you feel in that room. So many homes fall into those basic categories that I have already discussed:
Basic Needs-Utilitarian Décor-No style or substance.
Classic Suburban Status Quo “I shop there too…we have so much in common!”
Highly Stylized Glamourized Emporiums-Please do not touch anything and for gosh sakes if you have to sit there…make it quick. Because I will need to fluff that pillow again. These EMPORIUM’s can be “designer” induced inspirations…or an individual’s compilation of self mutilation by bad taste singing the cliché phrase of “but look how much I saved.”
Either way the question at hand is what makes good design? Huge-huge question…so my answer is of course multi-layered:
Well designed rooms are more than a pretty room…a well designed room evokes a feeling of WELCOME, come in, and sit for awhile. That is why with so many taste levels and style preferences you see why it is difficult to say what is good design and what is bad.
My personal favorite to live in…is a bohemian inspired, with a collected-eclectic vibe…wow that is a mouthful. Here are some pictures of some commercial and residential designs that have a very unique vibe. These kind of environments make me happy! I love a room where I can’t stop looking around…taking it all in. Where I want to touch and discover something new and unique at every turn. Those environments tell me that who ever created this…is interesting and very creative, and I need to know them. “Pretty” rooms, say nothing about who lives there…or maybe it does…and that might be “that I don’t really have much to say”.
This is a fresh, new, and exciting-detailed and inviting all at the same time commercial space. Real plants are huge again, love the mix of new and vintage furniture pieces combined, and the use of scale large and small…excellent job!
Loving the teal tile in classic hex pattern and the factory styled windows. Personally the table (perhaps a gray marble) and rug could have been slicker…I know everyone’s a critique.
Loving the thrift art…personally I would done a lot more…perhaps a whole wall in the back!
Use of color…BRAVO…arrangement needs to be on left of the mantle! Always start with highest element on the left…we read left to right.
Maybe that is the reason that I have always preferred to be called a Home Stylist versus an Interior Designer, a room needs to have a sense of STYLE to evoke interest…not just pretty fabric.
Thanks for stopping by!
Inspire
The place was Windsor Elementary school in the northwest suburb’s of Chicago…and at this particular moment we where in the middle of changing classes. Passing through the hallway’s to our next class when my fourth grade English teacher needed to “call me out” in the front of all the “popular” kids (of course). He needed to choose that particular time to let me know that I couldn’t put two words together to save my life. There…there it was…my first public shaming.
Life holds so many vast experience’s, some really good and of course, the contrast…the really bad. As a child I had so many concepts of what would evolve in my own life. Constantly trying to project and visualize what my destiny would look like.
Never realizing that as I sit here…at what many would refer too as the mid point in my LIFE, and strangely enough I still feel so profoundly strong in the fact that “I have nothing, but to me I have everything”. Maybe a little to altruistic…but the truth.
I find this phrase to be somewhat of a personal victory slogan for myself, perhaps a silent one, but either way I have been able to find total bliss and acceptance of self, no matter the circumstance. Don’t get me wrong I will still have those moments of doubts and fears…but thankfully they’re just moments.
My story is not a reflection of a life gone by too quick with unfulfilled promises, nor even a story of a tragic incident that prevented a destiny. No…if anything this is a thank you note to myself for believing , trying, and aspiring. I have done a lot with the little that I had, what I have done and accomplished would barely strike an interest to others. But for me it was enough.
I have lived a very simple, ordinary, far less extraordinary life then many. So why does this deserve your attention? It doesn’t…if anything…while so many try so hard to achieve something that says “hey look at me…look at what I did…aren’t I special”? While in fact I enjoyed the reverse. I spent a lifetime discovering what makes me happy…what brings me peace…I spent many years creating and allowing and finally graduating with a degree of “I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF ME”…which is strictly a self applied degree.
The reason that is so important is because when it all comes down to it…your the only one that needs to be comfortable with yourself. Once that occurs, then you are a success.
I think that so many are just trying to “figure out” how to obtain happiness and peace, along with a certain level of financial peace and safety. That when you mix that in with all the other day to day family or self-survival basics we become so programmed to routines and standard protocol, that we forget what life is about. To me life is about discovering and allowing
I have seen so many walks of life, the financially affluent, to those who don’t understand how they will get through the following day. We all have…such different CONCEPT’S about success and survival. I have personally experienced times where the money was flowing in and other times where it had completely dried up. So I know all about the dualities of life what it can bring.
This “everything” is a knowing, someplace deep inside you that no matter what happens…you will get through. This sense of self (accept)ance is not a suit of armor that you wear to protect yourself from the world with all of it’s many advantages and disadvantages. No, it’s more of a coat of accepting, accepting of self and others. Which is a lot easier said then done. I feel that we are bred to be competitive, it’s our natural instinct…and with FACEBOOK? That forum allows you to strengthen and sharpen those skills daily.
We have such a dichotomy of personalities in the world, their are those who basically have no care or sensitivity to anyone but themselves, some over-give only to end up truly hating themselves, and then their are the silent ones, who are just plain afraid of everything. You would need to be a touch schizophrenic to even think you can be accepted/excepted by all.
So…I guess the magic word here is ACCEPT…yes that is the correct word in this case “accept”. I feel that we all need to incorporate this word in our lives now, and for those who need a quick grammar refresher:
Except-To “leave out”.
Accept-To receive.
So that’s it…I just reduced the total life experience to a single word…ACCEPT. Yes, I can hear the mass gawful as I type this out, but is it really that simplistic and that over generalized. We as human’s just like to make life so very complicated. To ACCEPT yourself with all of gift’s and flaw’s is the true essence of life. That gift will then allow you to achieve a sense of peace and well being…then you shall receive without exceptions.
Simple and Cozy Lifestyle 