One of the publications that comes across my desk periodically, which calls itself the international authority for interior design, lately devoted an issue to taste makers.

Taste, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is individual preference, aesthetic quality, discernment, and appreciation.

In every day language your personal taste is what you like.

This publication, and often others, present the personal life styles, residential environments, likes, and choices of the featured individuals.

The inferred goal of such publications is that being such is good and can be copied or used as a reference guide for one’s own residential environment. And, be being published is this periodical gives such validity.

Most often, these featured persons have the supposed quality of being suitable for such because of their status. Be it social-economic, popularity, ancestry, connections, being famous, celebrity, being well known, or personal achievements.

In evaluating the merits of such presentations there are two aspects to consider.

First, what are the talents, educations, experiences, information, qualifications, creativity, imagination, do ability, et cetera that validate these people presenting such and what and how does such relate to your life style and residential environment? Is there something here that can be learned to raise the level of your personal tastes? Or, is it merely mass fodder to sell magazines?

Secondly, if your personal taste is what you like, and it is, which is more preferable? Going down their path way or finding and following your own expression? Do want to be one of the masses or your own self?

Food for thought.

In the information that comes across my desk each day about the housing industry in this country are photos of the houses that are being built in new developments in all areas.

The majority of these houses are built in a “traditional” style and look as if they were siblings.

They mostly seem to have one outstanding aesthetic design feature in common. The garage door is the biggest physical and most important design feature for the front of the house.

This garage door is utilitarian and absorbs much of the aesthetics for the street view.

While these buildings are mass produced for a mass market and with all of the resources, materials, skills, and intelligence available today is it not conceivable that with creativity, imagination, and thinking one could come up with a design that could either eliminate or improve such situations?

Over the course of history, generally speaking, the front, and especially the front door, are the welcoming and flavor aspects of a residence and it’s occupants.

What does a double garage door projecting at the front of the house say about such?

Perhaps other features and aspects of the front of the house are more important for some persons than the aesthetics. We are all different individuals with different personalities.

Food for thought.

Where does one outside of the field go when one wants information of merit about the designing of one’s residential interior space?

Lists for such sources show amply results. Any one who chooses, in most instances, can list themselves as an interior designer, interior decorator, interior consultant, design services, et cetera.

Furniture stores, floor covering business, paint and wall paper companies, fabric and window treatments concerns, construction contractors, economical-status-social individuals, et cetera, and the list goes on. All can and often promote themselves as providing interior design services.

And then there are the magazines, television shows, internet sources, books, and videos that are of the same premise.

Where does one go for valid residential interior design information?

The first question to ask is: Is the source’s primary reason for being in business to create the best design results for my residential interior space, or is their primary reason for being in business to sell you something? Is such person an interior designer or a salesperson?

The second question to ask is: What qualifications to design an interior residential space does said person have? What academic training do they have? What is their intelligence, imagination, and creative level? What knowledge and experience do they exhibit for the overall world of interior design and the other related fields such as building contractors, workmen, suppliers, custom works, et cetera, that are outside of their particular area of expertise? Can they professionally advise you and work successfully with these other areas?

Think of what are the most and best results that you want from a residential interior design service and then seek out the best qualified person that will give those results. It should be a totally professional business experience and not one of personal connections.

Those people with knowledge, experience, and who know what they are doing generally produce the best results in professions including the profession of interior design.

Food for thought.

Work: productive, scheduled, goals, meetings, profitable, intellectual, talents, knowledge, computers, cell phones, must do, required, efficient, effective, financial

Home: nuturing, being self, personal, emotional, fun, relaxing, freedom, refreshing, choices, recharging, indulging, connecting, want to do, fulfilling, likes

Work is business.

Home is personal.

Don’t take work home.

Don’t take personal to work.

Got it?

Do it!

To what level of quality for the completeness of doing and being of your personal self does the design of the interior spaces in your home environment provide?

Food for thought.

“Status: relative rank of heirarchy in people’s mind” Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary

Status has been and still is an important aspect of human surroundings and behaviors since the beginnings of civilizations.

What is the purpose and role of status in our environment? Why is it important to people? What does it contribute to the advancement of civilization and the betterment of day-to-day living?

Is status of merit?

Status may be assigned to almost any thing thus directed. Most often it is associated with costs, rarity, location, history, lineage, intelligence, education, quality, snobbery, arrogance, et cetera.

If one chooses to go the status route for residential interiors, the most important aspects are the quality levels of creativity and the quality of materials used. Other aspects can be a part of or added to the manifestations when appropriate.

In all things, be true and real.

Who, what, when, where, and why determines status?

Food for thought.

People, as adults, go through various stages in their requirements for the sizes of their residential environments.

These different phases may be affected by economics, current requirements, the market, availability, age, or personal life styles. All of which will probably change many times over the years in one’s life.

Currently, there are movements in the market for smaller residences for those in the market for their first home purchase, to provide more available housing for spaces available, especially in urban situations, and for some older home owners who find themselves in the “empty nest” phase of their lives.

One hundred and eighty degrees from these people are those who desire larger residential spaces. Perhaps because of more children, more than one generation living in the same residential spaces, or because they want to move into more convenient, functional, or spacious environments.

For all sizes of residential spaces, the principles of aesthetics, functional requirements, and the laws of physics still apply.

The most important aesthetic consideration in sizing for all residential environments, regardless how large or small, is proportions. The furnishings of a residential environment should be proportionally designed and manifest for the spaces in which they are used.

How excellent are the proportions in your living environment?

In these changes, as always, the quality of manifestations should be as high as possible.

Food for thought.

Creation: “The act of making, creating, or inventing, to bring into existence.” Webster’s Dictionary

It is the quality and quantity of creating that determines the aesthetic level of a designed residential interior.

It is not the costs involved. rarity of items used, scheduling, locations, names, status, popularity, materials used, resources used, et cetera which determines the aesthetic results.

It is how these, and all of the other aspects of a project, are put together that determine aesthetic results.

Having the finest cooking facilities in the world and the best ingredients in the world does not make a delicious meal.

It how these food stuffs are prepared, cooked, and served that make the delicious meal.

The same concept is true for designed residential interiors. Using imagination, functions, principles of aesthetics, out of the box thinking, forward thinking, creativity, and intelligence for the doing of a residential interior manifests the highest level of aesthetics.

If in the eating, which last for a few minutes, of food stuffs you want that which is the most appealing and pleasurable, would it not be of the same principle to have your residential interior environment, in which you spend hours each day, the most beautiful?

What is the creative level of where you live? How does it affect your quality of existence?

Food for thought?

No residence is complete with out a kitchen sink.

It’s a basic necessity for the activities of cooking, eating, drinking, and cleaning of foods and objects used in the processes.

How can the kitchen sink be used for financial and environmental advantages as well as being convenient?

Think of what is involved in the consumption of bottled water. From beginning until plastic bottle is discarded. The manufacturing of containers and water, transportation, packaging, consumption, resources, and distribution of products and of empty containers. What effects do all of these processes have on our environment from chemical reactions to air pollution to landfills. How much do all of these activities cost financially?

All for a drink of water.

With a water filtering system at the kitchen sink all of the negative aspects associated with bottled water can be eliminated.

Money is saved. Resources are saved. The environment is saved.

Is it not worth such a positive and desirable activity to maintain the planet which is our home?

Food for thought.

As times change, new inventions come into daily life, younger generations become a more important part of society, and different life styles become more prominent. These differences are reflected in the standards and ways of living and working in a culture.

Such is what is happening these times in this United States of America.

With the prominence of computers and more variations in social, economic, educational, cultural, population diversity, life styles, and different generations less conforming, such changes are becoming more popular and accepted as a reflection of our current culture.

What started as a casual day at work has become more popular and is now the standard in many businesses.

The clean shaven male is no longer the given and facial hair is a popular fashion.

The most often worn clothes for men, women, and children are becoming increasingly more casual with more emphasis on comfort and function than style and fashion.

This trend is also becoming a part of current residential living. There is a change to less formal styles, uses of spaces, and ways of day-to-day living, and fewer concerns for what was important to previous generations.

Societies and cultures have reflected occurring changes since the beginning.

Unfortunately, many people have allowed current changes to lower quality, intellectual, and aesthetic levels by showing little or no interest in their residential interior environments.

Casual does not necessarily and should not mean sloppy, poor quality, careless, by chance, or slovenly when it comes to personal appearance, clothes, business, life styles, and one’s residential interior environment.

Like water, one’s personal taste finds it’s own level.

What is the quality, intellectual, and aesthetic level of your tastes? What does it say about you? How does it affect the results of your living?

Food for thought.

“The encounter with the aesthetics is the most ‘ingessive’ transformative summons available to human experiencing.” George Steiner

To ingest intangibly aesthetically is to experience inside a feeling of beauty, wholeness, awesomeness, joy, and completeness with life as being “in the zone” on the same level as sexual and spiritual manifestations without sensual stimulation.

What is the action of a purposely full life, if not the goal of life itself, if not to experience being at the highest and greatest degree?

Where are you in experiencing life as such?

What is your level of consciousness here?

What do you want and seek here and how important is such to you?

What efforts, or non-efforts, are you making in your life for your purposes in living?

How does the quality and level of aesthetics in your residential interior environment affect these experiences?

Food for thought.