The Art We Live In

In 9th grade, I went through a phase when I thought aesthetic concerns just take attention away from relationships and charity, so I wore cream-colored turtlenecks with a chunky wooden cross and no makeup. I was basically trying to be a nun. 

Like Anne Hathaway's character in the The Devil Wears Prada, I had to learn to appreciate that clothes are the art we wear...and interior decor is the art we live in -- AND they both have a material affect on our relationships and outlook.💡 

By now, Josh and I are in our 7th home, and thanks to Marie Flanigan, HGTV, Joanna Gaines, Katy Southern, Mitzi Maynard, Suzy Knapp, Pinterest, Houzz (@vucarolyndenny), our realtors, and so many others, I've come a long way. Interior design has become a beautiful escape from and backdrop for the controversial worlds of parenting, Bible teaching, women's ministry, and social justice.

HomeBody helped define my style (and the pics🤤),
DreamHome is great for practical/ROI advice, and
HouseBeautiful keeps me current/creative.

But it's not the easiest hobby to pick up! I've had to work and read and search and pay for every little bit of instruction, because NO ONE seems to teach the basics on how to decorate a house--not to mention the trends are always changing. I've looked for podcasts and design books, and found a few favorites (see pic), but they still don't make everything explicit. 

Now that I'm suddenly getting to redecorate our basement, I've plunged back into the design world in a hurry, figuring out what I see a lot, what's on its way out, and how to even approach a blank slate. 

I was talking to a friend today who has a similar project ahead with NO idea how to start. #ihearya So, I'm going to share my Top 10 "rules of thumb" I've stumbled upon. Feel free to add, edit, or disagree in the comments! 

And PLEASE for the love of all that is holy, don't be offended if I say something in your home is on the way out. If you love it, LOVE it! That's great! These trends only matter if 1) you're having to make decisions about a reno/refresh, OR 2) you're putting your house on the market. 

Latest mood board for my basement. #nordic

1. Collect your LOVES. Swipe on Pinterest or Houzz, through catalogues or on Instagram and screenshot your favorites until you have a group of room pictures you love for each "zone" in the rooms you're decorating. I create a picture collage of my very favorites as a "mood board" that I consult before every purchase to make sure my choice fits that "mood" (style, see pic). But I keep a bigger stack in an album on my phone. Whenever I'm researching the next thing (paint, floors, cabinets, countertops, lights, etc), I scroll through these photos to see what people have used in rooms I love. It helps narrow down what seems to work in the rooms I enjoy. You can also stick to stores whose style you love, such as Crate & Barrel (or CB2), West Elm, Pottery Barn, Arhaus, RH, Ikea, Ballard, Serena & Lily, FrontGate, Joss & Main, or One Kings Lane. Just try not to buy all from the same place, or you'll feel like you're walking into that store when you walk in your door.

2. USE every room. And let how you use it drive your choices. How do you want to USE the room? What can you do there that you can't do in another room of the house? As we redo our basement, we had to decide what we want most: extra guest beds, a home theater, more storage, a fireplace to warm it up, a kitchenette, double-shot basketball, a toy playroom, or a workout room. We can have more than one (breaking up a big room into "zones"), but we can't do them all. And we can keep it fairly flexible (no built-in theater seating) but we do have to put the TV somewhere. Use should also drive arrangement: don't place 2 couches facing each other but perpendicular to the TV if you use them primarily to watch TV. Don't fill a playroom with furniture if your kids mostly want it for indoor wrestling (but maybe pad the walls?).  

3. CLOSE it in. I've been skeptical of the totally open concept for years, but 2020 has been my vindication. Make sure the heart of your home is open and big enough for everyone to hang out comfortably, but also make sure there are separate spaces for people who need to get away from each other. Maybe you want an adult space vs kids space? Or each person needs their own little haven? I have a table and chairs in my bedroom to write these posts; my sons who share a room each have the bottom of a closet as their own little man-caves. We added a wall and french doors to a living room to make my husband a home office. We can send a posse of kids to the basement while the adults hang out upstairs, or the kids can all eat in the kitchen while the adults escape to the dining room. Open sight-lines can be great, but walls can be great too. #goodfences Maybe you can't move walls, but you can incorporate needed outlets/workstations/havens in your furniture arrangement.

4. Phone a REALTOR. Even if you haven't moved in eons, talk to a busy realtor before you go too far. Your house is your biggest investment, and you don't want to put money in that will decrease its value. Find out what people in your area are looking for these days so you know where spending makes the most sense. Even if you don't ever plan to move, #youneverknow so its best to have that knowledge (even if you choose to ignore it). We were struggling to decide between travertine and tile for our basement, but our realtor made that decision easy. #goforthetile He also reminded us that we're more likely to get our money out of investments in our backyard than upgrades to our basement. And that a kitchenette with the possibility of functioning as a kitchen (making our basement a complete apartment) is more valuable to buyers than a wet bar that cannot be expanded (i.e. stuck in a 5' nook). Bottom line: in this case, more info really is better.

Some great examples of tricking us into thinking
there's more natural light than there actually is - 
especially bottom right with the interior window
and 2 levels of lamps.

5. Go LIGHT. Light tends to make everyone happy, so when in doubt, err on the side of light-colored, light-filled decor. That includes not letting blinds/curtains cover any part of the window when they're open, having plenty of lamps in a room (at different heights and connected so they're easy to turn on; we use smart bulbs and Alexa routines so they go on/off automatically), choosing light-colored paint (in matte so it's not shiny), upholstery (performance fabrics of course!), and even furniture (Nadeau has great natural wood or painted pieces). It's much easier to warm up a light-colored room (think fur and candles) than to lighten a dark room. You can also use materials like frosted glass, mirrors, or indirect light to make dark spaces (feel) brighter. Working on our basement, I see lots of "can" lights in the ceiling and indirect (think under-cabinet, on art, or behind a mirror or screen) light to mimic windows that aren't there.

6. Keep it SIMPLE. My latest love is nordic style, so I may seem biased, but this is a good rule of thumb even if you love the cluttered cottage look ala "The Holiday" in the Cotswolds. Americans tend to have way too much stuff (see the popularity of Marie Kondo or The Home Edit) and we tend to think more is better, but the easiest way to refresh a room is to remove half the stuff in it. Same for any individual piece: the less ornament, the simpler the lines, the better. Scroll work was hot in the 18th century (and maybe 1980s), but "clean lines" are all the rage now.

I love baskets because they're
pretty, natural, and easy
to throw stuff into. Tall for
laundry, low and wide for toys
or socks.

7. Put it AWAY. If you always find a mess in a certain place, that place is crying out for storage (a basket for toys, a bench for shoes, hooks for coats, a console for electronics, a drawer for papers, etc). If the clutter of ordinary life is driving you crazy but it's stuff you actually use, visit the container store, isolate the areas where you use stuff, and figure out how you can "put it away" in that area, conveniently. I now have baskets, benches, and even a trunk throughout the house so no one has an excuse for leaving stuff all over the floor (most of them from Goodwill or HomeGoods). 

8. Bring BALANCE. Balance makes us feel good, whether we know it or not. The easiest path to balance is symmetry (the same on both sides), but when that's not available (or too boring), you can group items or offset them. For example, I'm designing a kitchenette right now with only bottom cabinets and the sink is closer to the right wall, so I'll need shelves or pendants or a plant toward the left to make it feel balanced. When I bought 2 chairs for our family room, they came in shorter than our sofas. They look like doll furniture. But then I put a big table and lamp between them and art behind, and now they totally look balanced with the sofas. Also, bedside tables don't need to be the same, but they should feel...balanced. We have a small antique wood dresser of drawers on one side and a modern, thin-lined iron/marble tiered table on the other, but the materials of the modern table balance out its thin lines and similar heights/widths of the two tables make them feel proportionate.

See how the top 2 pics look like a random wall
that's missing something?
Whereas the bottom 2 make more sense,
and are more functional. #bonus

9. Tie it TOGETHER. This is a hard one to describe, but a beloved in my life does NOT see this AT ALL so that's helped me recognize it as a "rule." Think of each section of your room, each "zone," each wall, each sightline as a vignette. If it helps, walk around and take pictures of each area of the rooms you're decorating. You walk into your rooms and enter your hallways all the time: what kind of view greets you (not out the window but right in front of you)? Can you make it more artistic? Add balance? or somehow make the objects in each "picture" (zone, vignette, corner, or wall) look like they belong together? For example, we have a wall in the basement with 2 small windows on either end near the ceiling and a 5'x2' nook in the middle (see pic). My beloved wanted to put a closet in that nook, or a kitchenette. It would be balanced, but so random to have a 5' kitchenette in the middle of a 15' wall. Whatever we put there needs to make sense as a centerpiece and somehow feel connected to the walls or windows on either side. We could put a fireplace in the nook with shelves on either side under the windows; we could have built-ins that run the whole wall, or add curtains on either side of the windows (tho they're too high/short for that), etc. But it needs to look like it makes sense, almost as if you were staging a painting.

10. Keep Moving FORWARD. If you've seen it EVERYWHERE for a while now, it may not be around much longer. Overexposure spells doom for...almost anything really. I've always loved herringbone, but now I see it in every catalog, on every surface. That's not a good sign for its longevity -- rather like the trellis pattern in the "tying it together" pic, or subway tile. Something that's been huge for a while becomes tied to that era, so keep an eye out for what you're just starting to see a lot. For example, I see signs that it may be time to let go of the grays, the distressed, and even (gasp!) the white kitchen. Don't panic; I have a white kitchen too! It's not suddenly "out" -- but it's not what I'm seeing among the interior design trend-setters, magazines, instagrammers, etc. Instead, I'm seeing a move toward matte colors, simple/slab cabinet doors, edge pulls, natural wood, and stone. We still want light, but we also want simple, cozy, natural, and personal. So I'm not going to pick out our kitchenette features based on what we wanted in our last house. In other words, keep an open mind. Go with what you love, but not if you think you might be sick of it next year.

And a bonus tip...

11. Choose WISELY. Some of the outlandish designers of House Beautiful notwithstanding, I'm amazed how often high design still uses simple neutrals for all the big-budget pieces from rugs to sofas to walls. The pops of personality and color are often reserved for cheaper, easy-to-change accents from armchairs to art, pillows, and blankets. I have dear friends who know how to make big statements with color, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Maybe I'm just a conservative at heart, but I try to keep the big stuff neutral so I can swap out accessories with the seasons. Too often I've pulled out pillows I bought 2 years ago for spring, only to realize I don't like them anymore. That's when I'm thankful they weren't a couch.

Ok, now I've gotta run. I may try to add more pics later, but hopefully this is a helpful start. Like I said earlier, feel free to add ideas or questions in the comments!