What’s Your Problem (with design)

Ahh the ever unattainable magazine spread, featuring a perfectly collected cottage that looks like it is lived in by magical fairies. Just the right balance of books and inanimate objects on the table, sun beams flooding in through the perfectly hung draperies, looking through to the beautifully manicured garden. It’s enough to make any sane person insane with design envy. 

If you are like most homeowners, you would be happy with an organized junk drawer but who doesn’t want deep down to obtain the wonderful and inviting home in those pictures? It can be daunting and overwhelming to say the least, forget trying to live up to the magazines, you’re just trying to find matching curtains! Don’t despair, help is here!

To start with, take a deep breath and ask yourself these questions to decide where to start.
What room is top priority? What will this rooms primary use be? What magazines and styles have you been drooling over?  What colors are you drawn to? What is your budget?  What is your timeframe? Do you have friends or family that are good with colors and design that could help you, or that can recommend a great decorator/designer? If you have more money than time (or patience) then hiring someone is the way to go. Not only will you take the stress and pressure off of yourself, but they can help you pull together your vision, actually save you money and time in many cases and give you an overall more pulled together look.

If it is important to you, then do it as soon as you can. So many of my clients put redesigning off until they hate their home, decide to sell, hire me to stage it and then say “wish we would have done this sooner, so we could have enjoyed it.” And in some cases they decide not to sell because the home they wanted was there all along, it just needed a little love. I truly believe that a happier home makes a happier heart. No money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy drapes and just the right amount of books vs inanimate objects!

What’s the idea? Southern Living Idea House

I was excited to discover new and interesting design inspirations at the Horseshoe Bay Southern Living Idea house. I had no idea what I was in for. Overall the design and materials the builder used were lovely, but the misses were big, especially in the layout and function. From the gravel pit of an entrance (if you can decide where the entrance is), to the over abundance of seating and entertaining space and lack of actual living and sleeping space, this house misses the mark at almost $4 million! You have over 90 places to sit in almost 20 different seating areas, including 5 dining/bar areas, 6 Living/Sitting areas, 10 outdoor areas and only 4 bedrooms! I went away wondering where are any of these guests going to stay. And if they get one of the few bedrooms, they better be children, because those rooms are tiny.

But the biggest miss was the decor. I left feeling confused and unsatisfied with my biggest question being why did they do that? If you were to pick up the Idea House magazine and leave, you might get by with saying they did a nice job, but if you tour the home you will think otherwise. I’m not sure if they staged the home for pictures and then had to return some furniture and get new items, or if they just like to move pieces around to confuse you. The layout of furniture and decor that is actually in the home now, is a disaster.

To be continued…