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Creative relaxation.

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Saw this moments ago.

How does this apply to people who are designing their homes?

If you have good taste and are doing a significant project, make the most of it by involving someone who has already fought their way through to "good." If you spend your personal decorating budget on initiating a personal fight to the creative side, your space will become a long-term, awfully expensive testament to the above-mentioned "gap" that everyone pushes through on their way to goodness. Let a professional who's already made it to the other side help you make better decisions that more powerfully express your taste. 

This is Style Genius advocating for interior designers on a home improvement Sunday. We want you to make kick-ass decisions.

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Transforming Vision (by Thomas Wold)

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We are constantly called upon to make decisions that, in a sense, give our taste away. The fact is that we take it seriously, not only as an ornament of life but as one of its almost inescapable problems. Taste is our personal delight, our private dilemma, and our public façade.

Russell Lynes, The Tastemakers, circa 1930s

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curated collections 

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A rooftop tub in Rotterdam

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Compelling Photographs of Sofas in Suburbia. Click on photo to see full slideshow.

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There are living-room critics--efficiency experts who probably Xerox on both sies of the paper and use their soap till it's as thin as tissue--who relieve their personal anxieties by insisting that the world should operate efficiently. The idea of dedicating an expensive piece of real estate to Keeping Up Appearances is as extraterrestrial to them as having two sets of china, one for "everyday" and one for "Good."

Joan Kron, Home Psych

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Excerpt from The Common Life, by W. H. Auden

A living room . . . confronts

each visitor with a style,

a secular faith: he compares its dogmas

with his, and decides where

he would like to see more of us.

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Located in the small village of Västra Ingelstad, Sweden

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Commoditizing Stuff.

I wrote this piece for my personal blog, but I'm sharing it on Style Genius' tumblr because of its relevance to the design / furnishings space:

“A few miles down the road from where I live on the coast of Maine, a talented young bookseller named Lacy Simons recently opened a small bookshop called Hello Hello, and in her blog she wrote eloquently about her relationship to “everyone who comes in my store. If you let me, I’ll get to know you through your reading life and strive to find books that resonate with you. Amazon asks you to take advantage of my knowledge & my education (which I’m still paying for) and treat the space I rent, the heat & light I pay for, the insurance policies I need to be here, the sales tax I gather for the state, the gathering place I offer, the books and book culture I believe in so much that I’ve wagered everything on it” as if it were “a showroom for goods you can just get more cheaply through them.”

This is from a recent NY Times article by author Richard Russo describing how Amazon made a slight boo-boo, by encouraging customers to do its dirty work and scan books with its new price comparison app.

It hurts to read because Lacy, the bookseller, is aware enough to describe her bookstore in terms of the experience it provides, which we still value. (I’ve been reading The Experience Economy. It’s fab.) 

When it comes to goods, we’re not nearly as sympathetic to the local guy. Using a smartphone to scan goods (like office supplies) and then buying them from Walmart hurts those merchants just as much as Lacy is hurt by Amazon, and it somehow doesn’t feel as… wrong.

They’re both local businesses, but book buying means something. Shopping for stickers at the stationery store? Not as much. So it isn’t the local aspect that makes Richard Russo’s piece sting, it’s the uniqueness of the book-buying experience.

The greater access to information that enables instant price-checking, as one example, is a force that will keep degrading all stores, book and non-book, into repositories for mere “goods”, in the consumer’s mind — to be examined at Lacy’s but purchased somewhere else for a few dollars less.

For local companies that can’t solely compete on price, the only way to fight that dynamic is with a badass, sticky in-store experience.

Whole Foods gets it.

Interior designers do. Ikea does. Furniture stores? Less so.

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L-O-V-I-N-G

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The decorating difference.

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Your life is tomorrow? No.

YOUR LIFE IS RIGHT NOW! IT’S NOT LATER. IT’S NOT IN THAT TIME OF RETIREMENT. IT’S NOT WHEN THE LOVER GETS HERE. IT’S NOT WHEN YOU’VE MOVED INTO THE NEW HOUSE. IT’S NOT WHEN YOU GET THE BETTER JOB. YOUR LIFE IS RIGHT NOW. IT WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT NOW. YOU MIGHT AS WELL DECIDE TO START ENJOYING YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE IT’S NOT EVER GOING TO GET BETTER THAN RIGHT NOW—UNTIL IT GETS BETTER RIGHT NOW!

— Esther Hicks (via inspiri)

(via liliezencoach)

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@ the rug market America, high point market 2011.

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Buying a Dresser, for Firsties

Dressers are a really versatile piece of furniture. They are both useful, because they organize clothing and other items that require storage, and they help keep the bedroom clean. They also can add a décor element to the room without overpowering it.

1. General type of wood should jive well with your other wooden furniture

Evaluate the general type of wood that’s in your bedroom, and make sure your dresser’s color and finish will not result in a jarring mismatch between room elements. There are quality pieces of tropical hardwood made into dressers that comes in many colors and finishes. You want it to go well with the room’s undeniable focal point: the bed. Does this mean you need to buy an entire bedroom set all at once? Definitely not, that’s why we said ‘go well’, not ‘match.’

2. Style and color should complement the room

Look closely at the wood pattern and style of the other accent pieces. If everything in your bedroom is contemporary, a dresser with a different style will instantly come into focus. That doesn’t mean we want to regress back into the one-dimensional, fussier days of yore, but it does mean that you should consider whether a dresser that’s going to stand out is strong enough to do it smashingly. The same is true for coloring. A light finish dresser will stand out if surrounded by dark colors. Therefore, know that you ‘can’ do it, but your eye will scrutinize that dresser more than if it blends in.  

Example of complementary dresser:

traditional bedroom design by new york interior designer Tiffany Eastman Interiors, LLC

Example of piece that fits right into furniture color scheme:

contemporary bedroom design by portland interior designer Ragan Corliss

3. Look for cosmetic damage

Speaking of scrutinizing, you should always be on the lookout for damaged merchandise. If you're purchasing an item and you get to look it over first, do not hesitate to bail out if there are scuffs and marks on it. As for hidden damage, such as a part of a piece that will be against a wall, always check to see if the sales associate can offer you a discount. In some cases you can save some money, and hey, asking never hurt anyone. 

4. Visualize the dresser in your room

Even if your dresser isn’t damaged, know that it may look different in the showroom from when it's delivered to you. Free online visualization tools such as Autodesk Homestyler will help you imagine how a dresser will look spatially, but those images will still be an approximation.

 Choosing the type of dresser should also depend on the available space that you have. Autodesk Homestyler will let you set up dimensions and put similar items in the room, so that you can get a visual idea of whether the space will feel cramped. 

There are ‘wide’ dressers that feature about eight drawers, and those afford you space on the top to add decorative touches like a mirror, that also add utility to the room. These types require more floor space for placement.

If you don’t have that space but want to maximize your storage capabilities, go vertical, and take a look at the high chest dressers. Many are six drawers, and are upright, which affords you quality furniture with a similar look, in less floor space. 

Keep in mind that you might not always find a perfect match to all your furniture items. Sometimes the wood designs will be slightly different, or the hardware will be in different metal. In attempting to get the ideal match, the best way is to keep it all in the same style. Most important of all, have fun!