Several months ago I wrote a post about Restoration Hardware’s ad campaign and how much I hated it. So now I need to backtrack a bit. Having now been in to RH to see the pieces individually, in all of their Belgian-Axel Vervoodt-inspired glory, I am totally in love. Axel is one of my biggest design inspirations. He has a style that verges on really spare, but is full of warmth, like a super-comfy weekend cottage. All of his designs have an organic bent, as if they just occurred on their own and were always meant to be there.
My personal style is all about found objects, distressed painted wood, strange arrangements and metal. I love me some rusty steel! If it’s been in a doctor’s or dentist’s world, all the better. While I tend to mistrust re-issues and copies, if it allows my clients to add unique style to their space, I’m totally behind it! For instance, I’m really into this little metal table from Pottery Barn:
I know what you’re thinking, “She’s gone mad!” I never said I hated Pottery Barn, or any big name store for that instance. What I said, and still say, is that I hate the cookie cutter look. People that go into these stores with a blueprint from the catalog and want the whole thing. Just cut and paste the style into their own lives. I hate that. It’s just wrong. Taking elements, whether they are trendy and/or “safe” and mixing them into your overall look is what counts. It’s always about curating, and should never be about copying.
My current clients, Janel and David Lehman have blessed me with free reign in their home. One of their only requirements was that their space not look like it came from a catalog. We have just ordered this gorgeous bed for their Master.
While I’m sure there are a few people who are going to have this bed in their bedroom, they won’t be mixing it with side tables made from adjustable potters’ tables:
These, combined with gorgeous brushed nickel lamp bases with linen shades, will be both soft and masculine. The walls will likely be yellow, and the clients’ bedding is a bright, bold print ala Anthropologie.
Having already tackled the living room redo (pics to post soon!) I made sure that every object we placed on the shelves, hung on the walls, or set into the room, reflected who the clients are, where they’ve been, and where they’d like to go. From the framed college era robotics club schematics, to large chunks of coral collected by the client’s father and grandfather, the room is 100% personal, but also 100% “decorated”.
Increasingly, I am being asked to create Cabinets de Curiosities for my clients. The idea of a cabinet harkens back to the Victorian era. They are literally miniature Natural History museums. They are meant to be looked at, touched, rearranged, pondered and talked about. This is a fabulous example of one located in a museum in France:
Each “cabinet” I make is individual to the clients’ lifestyle, memories, and interests. Therefore, it’s impossible for me to create replicas. Built-in bookcases are perfect for these installations. I also use tiny glass-fronted cupboards, empty clock boxes, shelves and tiny glass boxes. Curating the curiosities is a joyful experience for me. I use a combination of the client’s objects mixed with similarly dated and/or interesting things. Combined, I’m able to make a piece of organic, evolving art that is also a little weird and sometimes a little dark.
Mixing such personal things with pieces from a store like Pottery Barn works because it creates a space that has been assembled carefully. You can always tell when you’re in a room that someone put thought into.
The very best advice I can give anyone about decorating, whether it’s a big apartment, or a tiny bathroom, is to make it personal. Something, somewhere in the space has to tell a story. Those objects create an energy that can’t be replicated en masse.
By the way, Happy New Year!
Melisa
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