Your Home, Your Canvas
Your home is your haven ~ The most sacred of places. It’s where we retreat, recharge and spend time with those that mean the most to us. It should reflect the personality of those residing in it. For many, furnishing a home is a daunting task; one that can create so much angst that they leave their homes virtually undone. Many hire a designer to help them navigate the pitfalls of the process and how to best allocate their funds. And for just as many, this is not an option. Others may be fearless but not know where to begin and just need a little guidance here and there. I will be sharing many tips on home design here so I think it's important that you know a little more about my background. Today I am sharing my love and passion for all things home and how I fell into "Interior Design". WARNING: this post is a bit long and that is not usually my jam, so pour more coffee or just skip to the last paragraph.
Personally, my love of design and creativity dates way back. I was that child that always wanted to redo their bedroom, forever rearranging my furniture within my little parameters and creating new vignettes on my bookshelves. My parents were constantly pestered with requests to repaint and wallpaper (which is back in full force by the way) until they finally succumbed. Remember the Spiegel catalog that used to arrive by mail? Basically the only catalog at the time besides Sears and JCPenny? Well...I was so confused by their room design pages. I was certain they needed my help so I cut out every piece of furniture and bedding with great care and precision and then proceeded to glue them on to pieces of poster board that was cut down to letter size paper creating all new room vignettes. It was thoughtful of me, I know. I placed all their “new and improved” catalog pages in a big envelope and mailed them off to Spiegel. I couldn’t have been more than ten. And that new room I begged for...yep...you guessed it! The bedspread was from Spiegel of course. I did, after all, know their entire catalog by heart. Around that same time one of my friends big sisters (who I believed at the time to be the most beautiful girl to grace the planet besides Sue Ellen Euwing on Dallas) graduated from college with a degree in Interior Design and was moving to Los Angeles. And that was that. I had big plans. I was going to become an interior designer, live in NYC or LA while wearing chain belts, high heels and espadrilles. Watch out world!
What seemed like a blink later I was moving away to school. And you know what? SMU did not offer interior design...not at that time anyway. TCU over in Fort Worth did but I wanted to live in Dallas...not Fort Worth. I just thought “I’ll go to design school later and just get a degree in Art History”. Uh huh...and Art History was like the hardest major ever. So I ended up with a degree in Psychology and returned to Louisiana. So many of my friends were receiving alternate teaching certificates (a fast track method of becoming a school teacher for those already possessing a degree). Surely LSU must offer this for Interior Design as well! NOPE. So I got an alternate teaching certificate. I’m also pretty sure I had some espadrilles so all was not lost. Life went on and in a matter of a few years I was married and Baby Girl came along. We had a darling little cottage style home in need of a complete renovation. You know the story...fixer upper in a great neighborhood. We renovated every inch of that house ourselves. There was no money to pay someone and I was just grateful Baby Girl liked to swing because that’s what she did while we worked on the house.
Once the house was finally “done” I hosted a stock the freezer shower for a friend having her second baby. I heard someone say “Hun, who’s your designer?” I was busy scanning the room to make sure everyone had a cocktail and their was plenty of food still on the table as any good hostess would, not realizing she was speaking to me! When she repeated herself, I replied “oh...it’s me. I did it.” I mean, I had redesigned the Spiegel catalog without so much as a thank you! I had also been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to dine with the renown southern architect A. Hays Town on many occasions. He was a dear friend to my then husbands family as he had designed two of their homes. During those dinners, I would hang on every word he said. The biggest takeaways: buy what you love and it will always have a home somewhere; buy the absolute best you can afford (quality over quantity always) and bare is better than bad. He said “a bare floor is better than a bad floor, a bare wall is better than a bad wall.” Apply that to all that you do. When that shower ended my dream was alive again. I was going to help said lady work on some rooms in her home that needed some attention. Oddly enough, her home was also designed by Mr. Town.
Trial by fire. That’s how I would sum up the next few years. Each project leading to another. I just figured everything out along the way. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of the best friends of my life as that’s what nearly each client became to me. Some are even my family now. I always had something going on...many even requesting help when decorating for Christmas or hosting an event. Many years later my own architect became like family to me as well (it’s a very personal job) and she would pass along other clients that needed help. It was so rewarding to be a part of creating the most sacred of spaces...the home. Many clients remained the same; we would just change things up a bit as their style and tastes evolved. I believe that’s why I’ve always preferred a neutral base. I’ve also learned that a home is never really “done”.
Things change, people change, tastes change, needs change...and so can YOUR HOME. Let your home be your laboratory. Play, create, have fun.... put your own stamp on your home. And if you get tired of it, change it. It is after all just paint and fabric. Invest in the big pieces and just have fun with the rest. Purchase pieces you love, that have some versatility. Start with a neutral palette. You can’t go wrong with a neutral palette ~ a blank canvas of carefully selected essentials. And as for my dream...well, Baby Girl is about to start her junior year of Interior Design at LSU, I’ve always been a Texan at heart, I indeed own a chain belt along with a closet full of high heels and espadrilles and have the dearest of friends from my years as an “interior designer” so I would say things worked out okay in spite of being ignored by Spiege,l which is now defunct. Perhaps they should have taken a look at my vignettes....
Below I have linked some pieces that create a nice foundation for anyone starting out, starting over or that just doesn’t know where to start. Think of these pieces as your canvas...a blank slate for a lab of your own.
xo, Melanie
SHOP
