Embraceliving

Archive for April, 2010

Many women have literally never had time to look around at the home-furnishings market to see what they would like if they could redo their own houses. Harried young mothers and ambitious career women fall into this category. They work so hard and focus so narrowly on one aspect of their lives that they forget they deserve a beautifully decorated home. I remember Leslie, an intelligent and bubbly young woman with a demanding job and two small boys, who presented herself at our studio. “I want to redo my living room,” she announced happily. “I’ve saved my salary for two years.”
“What style do you like?” I asked, and she exploded with laughter. “I’ve been so busy making the money to do it, I haven’t even thought about what I want.” We had to spend several weeks going through design magazines and furniture catalogs and many afternoons going through the showrooms until she got an idea of what her taste really was. Suddenly one day the phone rang.
“I want a dramatic, modern living room in antique ivory and black, with lacquer red accents. I want a clean-lined black lacquer hanging unit on the fireplace wall, and I want to cover the fireplace mantel with ivory travertine and brass trim. I want an ivory sofa and a big French chair, maybe done in red. Accents of brass and glass. Maybe a brass and glass coffee table and Japanese screens behind the sofa. Just big, simple calligraphy scrolls.” And after two months of looking, talking, thinking, and experimenting, it all came tumbling out: Leslie’s MAGIC ROOM. After this breakthrough we put the room together very quickly. It was a knockout—sophisticated with black marble tiles in the entry and a stunning color scheme. The heavy contrasts of black and ivory made a fabulous background for art and flowers.
So take heart, too-busy mother you can develop your own taste rapidly once you direct your energy toward design appreciation.

There was an interesting study done not long ago of the ratio between the number of decorative objects a person had and the number and quality of her personal connections to other people. In other word who would have more friends: the Spartan type had few decorative objects and toys around and e fewer that she really prized or the free spirit living pounds of clutter? The people with the fewest object the fewest knickknacks, toys, artworks, and collection maintained that they prized people
not things. They were not materialist, they said, and that’s why they didn’t like a lot of junk around. However, the study found that the cluttered souls, up
to their necks in bric-a-brac, had many more friends, more family connections, and more active social and civic ties than the other group.
This is good news for mother, of course, and it confirms one of our favorite secret beliefs—that mother are nicer than other people. But it’s really true in my professional experience that the potential clients who had the most clutter were the easiest to work with, provided that they liked the clutter. One of the tests my associate and I use on our initial interview at the client’s home to determine if we want to take the job is to ask, “What object in this room is your favorite?” If the person is hard put to identify anything as her favorite or to show any love at all for anything she has, we always decline the job. We always suspect a person who says, “Oh, I don’t really like any of it,” will be a difficult client.