Creating a Home that Matters

Over the course of a long career in interior design, I’ve come across the following scenarios on a number of occasions:

“There is nothing in this house that I’m attached to and I’d like to start with a clean slate, but I don’t know what I want,” says a client who has become bored with a stale or uninspired interior.  Or, often in the case of a younger client, “I really don’t have anything yet….I’m starting totally from scratch, and I don’t know what direction to go in”.  And thus begins the discovery process to unearth the hidden gems that will serve as inspiration for creating a home that matters.   Because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has something meaningful to build on when creating or re-creating that sacred space we refer to as “home”.

So how do you get a whole new look while holding on to the spirit of what truly makes a house a home?  I like to start with stories.  I find that if I share personal anecdotes that have informed my own sense of style, my clients begin to look at design in a new light. 

I have very clear recollections from my childhood of certain colors, textures and smells and how they made me feel…. the coco-colored mohair sofa in my paternal grandmother’s old Savannah brownstone, the amber beads she wore, her tortoiseshell glasses…all play into my love of earthy browns and soft, rich textures.  When I think of her I immediately think of the color brown.  When I think of my maternal grandmother who lived in South Carolina, my immediate thoughts are of the way the magnolias smelled in her magnificent gardens, the way my fingers felt on the cool ivory keys of her grand piano when I was asked to play for her at the beginning of each visit,  the silvery-pink hair ribbon and a pearl choker she always wore…. those colors and textures immediately bring back feelings of love and joy.  As a teen, living for two years in Thailand, I fell in love with the heady tropical scents of jasmine and frangipani, adding those to my sense-memory with the southern magnolia.   The jeweled colors of Thai temples and the saffron robes of the monks as they billowed in the breeze all became a part of my visual lexicon, able to stir up feelings of mystery and enchantment, even now, so many years later.  

Whether creating a space for myself or a client, the place to begin is with the recollection of what is most meaningful….it might be a color that brings you joy because of a special memory, a texture that makes you feel warm and secure, a scent that transports you in some way.  These are the elements that are important to weave into a home.  Perhaps you have one piece of furniture that matters to you because it holds a million memories….use it!  Then fill in the blanks with new things that resonate because they bring happiness and a sense of belonging to your space.  The most interesting homes are a mix or old and new, nostalgia and inventiveness.  The important thing is to bring awareness to your choices so that your home becomes a reflection of who you are, where you come from and, perhaps, where you dream of going.