“Separate the wheat from the chaff.” Proverbs 20:26 Holy Bible

What does this quote have to do with the interior design of one’s resident?

Of all the information that comes across my desk about current residential interior designs there are multitudes of expressions as to it’s current status of what is now, what is dated, what to do, what not to do, et cetera.

Interestingly enough, these positions are many times in direct opposition to each other.

What is a layperson to do with all of this information?

How does one separate the good from the bad?

Intellectually, aesthetically, personally, realistically, and functionally analyze the results that are manifest by each position maker and evaluate accordingly.

Evaluate the qualities of the position maker for education, experience, talent, ethics, et cetera.

Are these position makers putting forth for the best interior design or are they trying to sell you something?

Who are you, where are you, and where do you want to go for the final end result of your inside living spaces?

What is the best way to get to that goal and how do these various positions relate to it?

What are the time frames, budgets, resources, codes, laws, doers, and other varying factors for your project and how do these positions fit into that picture?

Be true to your self and what fits you and your life styles and proceed accordingly including following your intuition and gut feelings.

As grand ma said “there are many ways to cook chicken” and there are many opinions.

Plot, plan, proceed, stay the course, and enjoy the journey and the results.

Food for thought.

What physical features determine the financial value of a residence?

What remodeling and other expenditures add or subtract from the value of a residence?

What does location do for the value of a residence?

What are current trends and marketing for residences?

What residential expenditures will be recouped?

What long term is the financial value of a residence?

All are current determining factors in the selling and buying of residential properties.

What is the function, merit, and return for the creation and building of residences?

Living in them?

Up and above the necessity of physical shelter from the elements what factors determine the value of a residence?

The quality of life, the expression of personality, and the emotional, psychological, intellectual, physical, and spiritual nourishment experienced there in are the underlying aspects of determining residential values.

If there is no fulfillment what is it’s value?

Food for thought.

Functional and personality reflective, two of the three qualities of a well designed living space, are very evident in many of the current world wide residential interiors that come across my desk.

There is the third important aspect that, to me, is missing.

I keep asking my self when looking at these living spaces: Are they beautiful?

While we all have our personal preferences (tastes) the biggest trait we use in selecting what we eat is to what degree does it taste good?

And yet we don’t apply that same qualifying principle to the aesthetic qualities of the spaces we occupy.

Why?

If we are to manifest life in an upward movement toward a higher level of civilization in our day-to-day living as the most intelligent existences on this planet is it not of merit to pursue such a beneficial aspect of our existence?

There have also most always been, when there are groups of people, those citizens who lead, who follow, who get in the way, and those who go backward.

Into which group do you belong when reflecting the aesthetics of the spaces in which you live and move and have your being?

Food for thought.

The aesthetic and functional level of achievement is the determinate factor in evaluating the success of a residential interior design project.

We enjoy and appreciate what we see with our eyes and react with our mind and emotions.

What about what we don’t see?

There is scientific evidence that aesthetics affect our physical body, including our heart, as well as fulfilling some of our primordial needs and desires all of which we are probably not aware.

Have you ever asked yourself how the aesthetic residential interior environment in which we live and move and have our being affects our inner physical body by what we don’t see?

Food for thought.

An executive with one of the leading international multi-billion dollar companies in the world had the need to inform me of certain limiting aspects of residential interior design.

Her superior economic-social status, her positions on various important boards, and her personally known connections were her resources for this wisdom knowledge.

She knew that residential interior designers have one particular style or specialty of designing and so are thusly limited to results there by achieved and that was basically it.

All of which was delivered with the subtle humility of peacock feathers.

Needlessly to say my experience is not congruent with her pontifications.

It is true that certain residential interior designers, and decorators, in this profession are specialist in certain niches and such can be applied to many other aspects of human behavior.

Being an expert in one area of knowledge, in and of itself, does not limit one’s abilities in other areas of knowledge.

With intelligence, education, creativity, and imagination applied with persistence there is no limit as to what aesthetic results can be achieved.

For this executive, as well as for people in many other aspects of life, such arrogance behavior clouds out reality, potentialities, facts, logic, and reasonableness.

When experiencing your living spaces do you see limitations or unlimited potential horizons?

Food for thought?

Rushing completion for their residential living spaces by a certain date is the position of some client situations encountered during my professional experience.

I always ask the question: why?

Are you dying and want to experience it before the end of your existence on this planet?

Rush designs usually equal mush results.

Residential interior design is not a fast food profession.

There are some people for whom money is no problem and they want what they want and they want it now. Such is how they live.

The highest quality level of residential interior design is not catering, entertainment, or event planning. There are other services for those occurrences.

The highest degree of aesthetics and level of functional performance should be the ultimate goals of a residential interior project and not your daughter’s wedding reception.

Houses, inside and outside, should be designed and constructed for the long term. Years, decades, and life times. After all, how long is a house suppose to last? Will it cease to exist after your daughter’s wedding festivities or any other reason for which it was rushed to completion?

Houses are, or should be, thought of as permanent. Events are temporary.

The main reasons for clients insisting, demanding, or wanting rushed completions are ego, arrogance, bullying, selfishness, and snobbishness which should not be design components of aesthetics although they may be reasons behind the project.

Food for thought.

What is happening in the world today? What has happened in the past? And what will happen in the future?

There are wars, fires, floods, heat waves, droughts, et cetera from climate change even in the lives of deniers.

The earth, which is where we live, is being junked with plastic and chemicals and basic necessaries such as the air we breathe and the water we need for life are being polluted dangerously.

What does such have to do with the role play of residential interior design to this crisis?

Houses, in which we live, are a major portion of the materials used on this planet and affect the chemical balance of nature the majority of which has taken place in the last few years of human civilization over the billions of years of the existence of this planet Earth.

What can we humans, as being the epitome of evolution, intelligence, and awareness, do that is necessary to bring about a more favorable balance with mother nature?

There are currently movements happening, such as recycling, healthy, clean, and efficient sources and uses of energy, cooperating with nature for food resources and use, balancing between all forms of animal and plant life, and balancing the affects of the tangible and intangible needs for human existence as we experience such.

Life is like a flowing river whose water characteristics do not change instantly but gradually with the changing aspects of which it is composed.

How does such affect the quality of your personal living spaces and what, if anything, are you going to do, or not do, for immediate and long term to preserve, advance, and improve life for this human family to which we all belong and this planet Earth on which we all live and move and have our being?

Food for thought?

As a person being the result of billions of movements over billions of years with the potential result of trillions of combinations who are you and what are your needs?

What fulfillment are you seeking?

A great question to ask yourself at the beginning of a residential interior design project or any other merit expenditure of resources.

As you occupy the spaces in which you daily live what fulfills you?

What is it that, for you, makes a dwelling place a home?

As well as the functional and tangible requirements in your living spaces what intangible characteristics fulfill your emotional, intellectual, psychological, and spiritual personal needs?

How well do you know your self to be aware and appreciative of these needs?

When all of the appearances are taken away, underneath, we are all human beings with the same needs and desires.

What thoughts and feeling do you experience when living and moving and having your being where you live?

Of how much are you aware and in the present there of?

Food for thought.

In all most all of the examples of photographs, published recently by one of the leading international sources on the subject of the best examples of current residential interiors, window treatments are fabrics, beautiful and of excellent quality as they may be, hanging on rods and rings and used as a folding screen for the space and not integrated into the design of the window itself.

Are these window treatments or stage curtains?

Why? What is the ultimate design goal here?

They fit well into the overall design of the spaces but what were they saying?

Is such an evolving trend or design movement ?

The question to ask here, as well in all aspects of all aesthetic evaluating situations, is it beautiful?

Does it make the best functional and aesthetic use of all of the elements involved in the complete design composition?

Creativity is one of the major elements in aesthetics and to be successful should be done aesthetically and intelligently.

Such applies to all appropriate aesthetic endeavors.

How do you react, or do you notice, to how the various elements of living spaces complete in the compositions of your daily living spaces?

Food for thought.

Much has come across into my life practicing this profession about the different manifestations of shouting vs whispering for aesthetics, psychological, physical, emotional, intellectual, background, cultural, fashion, and class status.

Shouting is portrayed as uncouth, nouveau riche, and lower class social prestige status where as whispering is luxurious quiet quality wealth and upper class with characteristics of old money even if only in appearance. Old money is generally considered more desirable and the highest social and prestige level.

What difference does such make in the design appearance for the environment on one’s daily living spaces?

The main difference is that shouting emphasizes the presence of the very obvious quantity of money where as whispering emphasizes quality of possessions, backgrounds, and life styles experiences.

Shouting is loud, boisterous, and”look at me” vs whispering which is subtle, quiet, and non-intention seeking.

Shouting is trying to impress by flaunting logos, labels, prices, and names where as whispering does not and let’s materials and design quality noiselessly be confident and present and has no need or desire to impress.

Both expressions are found over many different professions, families, politics, and lifestyles.

In theory, the quality level of aesthetics is determined by the degree of principles of aesthetics where such is desired and used.

And the question comes up: How much of these reactions is based on logical intelligent principles evaluations and how much is based on pure snobbery?

How important is one’s status and what role does it play in one’s life?

In your life’s experience of seeing residential environmental living spaces how do you react to such including the ones in which you live?

Food for thought.