In today’s world a lot of people shout who they are.

They wear clothes with a designer’s name boldly printed on the front.

They use a lot of marble and gold to show the world how rich they are.

Other people use the quality of materials and workmanship with an intelligent design.

Which is more important: quantity or quality?

The former shouts. The latter whispers.

What do the choices you make about your living spaces say about you?

“Actions speak louder than words.”

What purposes do you want to achieve in the choices you make?

How do your choices affect who you are and how the world conceives you?

Which choices are better and longer lasting?

It’s your life and your decision.

Food for thought.

It is a universal law of physics that water in it’s liquid state always finds it’s own level.

There is no variation on this truth.

This principle can also be applied to the choices made by people in the manifestation of their living spaces.

A combination of DNA, environment, intelligence, education, emotions, family, religion, politics, geography, et cetera determines the personality of individuals and what one likes and prefers which in turn determines how people live and express themselves.

These life style expressions are profoundly recognized in the manner is which an individual chooses to dress, express themselves, and the interior environment in which they live.

There are times in which societal and economics may affect a change.

Ambition, flaunting, one-up-manship, and other such behaviors may manifest other expressions.

However, some basic core of their personality will come out and need to be expressed in one way or another.

“Unto thine own self be true.” is not just a platitude.

How well do you know yourself and the core of your personality and being and how well do express it?

What do all of these exponents say about you and your living spaces?

Your mental interior design is a mirror of your residential interior design.

Food for thought.

Some people just don’t get it when the subject of interior design comes up.

Many people behave as if they have to state and validate their position.

Responses given after learning of my profession are some thing of a measure of what some people think and where they are in their knowledge of the subject.

The manager of a mall department store informed me that he was my competition.

The wife of an ivy league graduate lawyer said we get our furniture from North Carolina.

A prominent social-economic widow stated that you always put the couch on the longest wall.

The wife of a proficient medical doctor asked if it was my position that laundry facilities should be in the bedroom area.

Our responses show the world who, what, and where we are.

What do these responses say about the about the people who made them?

What do your responses say about you and how you want to be conceived by the world?

What are your responses and those who make them about the interior design of the spaces in which your live?

Food for thought.

According to the current information that comes across my desk, the current trends for residential interior design are boucle fabrics, natural materials, and texture.

Texture is one of the five characteristic elements of aesthetics and is always present and it’s use has always been a factor in results achieved. How is such a current trend?

What means the use of natural fabrics? Does such mean the elimination of colors and applied decoration?

Why is boucle a desirable trend? Is it comfortable or practical?

Trends come and go and are affected by the social, psychological, emotional, political, financial, et cetera conditions of the times.

Some trends are good and some are bad. Some make a positive influence and last and some are shallow and fade away.

Trends have been a part of the river of civilization since it’s beginning.

What if such current design trend are not to your liking and life style?

Are said current interior design trends of merit or mere current fashion and how does such affect you and your personal space?

A higher level of permanent quality, intelligence, and beauty is achieved when interior design projects are manifested by the principles of aesthetics and the laws of physics combined with the best quality of workmanship and materials available at the time to achieve the desired goals and not subjective to current design trends.

In your time of existence on the planet do you prefer to be your best self or to follow the current crowd?

Food for thought.

What does the internet have to say about your residential interior spaces affecting your behavior?

“Every thing in your home triggers an emotional response.”

How many of us are aware of such when we are home and to what degree?

Aesthetics can “improve your mood, increase your focus, and reduce anxiety”.

Also, “beauty enhances functionality”.

How many of us lead such perfect lives that we would not welcome more of such benefits?

So, how are you reacting to your home interior environment when there?

Are there aspects which can be improved or expanded?

You are the one living there.

The choices we make determine the results we experience.

What are your choices?

It’s your life.

Food for thought.

With all that is going on in our lives these days and how much our lives are involved and affected by cell phones and computers it is easy to get so involved that we get lost and miss the flavor of the moment of what we are experiencing so that life may seem to pass us by.

Those people who are familiar , qualified, and aware of such constantly advise us to be aware and in the moment of the present time as a healthy and affirming and joyous way of living.

Living in the moment helps to keep our lives in balance.

And any life, or any thing else, that is not in balance is not going to function properly.

When you look around where you live, what do you see that is beautiful and joyful and make you feel “at home”.

The experience you have at such times is determined and manifest by your choices of time, intelligence, and finances expended to your residential internal living environment.

“What you experience is what you give attention to.” William James

You are responsible for the choices you make.

Food for thought.

“My experience is what I attend to.”

William James

What is your experience when you are where you live?

What do you see, how do you react to such, and what done, do, or plan to do is your activity therefrom?

Our residential environment affects our physical comforts and functions as well as our psychology and aspects consciously and subconsciously.

During this holiday season what do you attend to that is different from the rest of the year and what is your experience thereof?

Each of us, as individuals, with what we do with our resources, including time and money, that we attend to determines our resulting experience.

Look around and analyze and think about where you live.

What is your direct observation? How do you feel about it?

Your choices are you.

Food for thought.

Have you noticed recently how much of the colors grey we see in our daily lives.

Most of the cars today are black, white, or grey.

How much grey do you see in the construction of commercial buildings and exposed concrete?

During this time of year much of foliage is very grey or dull.

looking outside these days even much of the sky is grey.

With the announcement of it’s 2023 color of the year, Pantone is giving us a short in the arm to help brighten things up.

The color they have chosen for 2023’s Color of the Year is viva magenta.

It is described as “about optimistic celebration, experimentation, and unrestrained self expression“.

All of which is a bright spot in view of the world situations today and for the past two to three years.

This color, according to their announcement, is “involking the focus of nature, it galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength”.

All of which is well and good.

It has always been my position that colors should always be chosen for the best aesthetic results of the project situation regardless of other factors.

This position remains the same.

When I was in design school, the color then currently popular, chic, trending, and talked about was magenta. Although this one is a little different, the question is asked, “Does history repeat itself?”.

Food for thought.

The Thanksgiving Day experience is over and now it’s full blast ahead for the upcoming holidays season.

While commercial decorations are usually designed to increase holiday sales, why are residential decorations so popular and profusely manifest?

Regardless of the type of or original causing history of these holidays or their social-economic status, many people go all out, and sometime overboard, when it comes to holiday residential decorations.

Why?

A very basic human behavior behavior.

The emotional over rules the intellectual.

And for most people, the joy, appreciation, anticipation, and experience of the holiday season is an emotional high regardless of it’s religious significance, tradition, abundance, et cetera, and a commonly liked and approved time of the year to let go of the complex and trying and necessary activities of our normal every day lives and go forth and celebrate a feeling and indulgence of pure joy.

Such is a good thing and is to be encouraged.

When it comes to holiday decorations, of which the Christmas tree is probability the most popular, the guide lines of intelligent and quality aesthetics go out the window.

Sentimental, traditional, cute, fun, personal, lights, adorable, quantity, et cetera guide lines are what is most often used.

Have you ever noticed that on many extremely well known prominent widely viewed national Christmas trees the history of the tree is given and when finished being decorated it is no longer seeable. You literally cannot see the tree for the lights.

From an aesthetic design point of view it may be wise to ask why being “traditional” is always the best route to take.

The best designs, aesthetically and intellectually, are the ones that best represent the time and place and purpose of their creation.

So. Enjoy the holiday season to the fullest in your own personal way even if for no other reason than to bring joy and light more universally for a brief fleeting moment in our current world.

Happy holidays!

Food for thought.

What do you see when you look?

What do you see when you look as everyone does not react the same when viewing the same subject matter?

Out reaction to what we see in a reflection of who we are as a result of almost all aspects of our lives that goes into the sum total of our personality.

Such includes where we are in evolution as well as the shaping of our each individual personality from what we have experienced up through the present time.

Among these traits are our intelligence, education, finances, politics, physical locations, religion or lack there of, time in history, and cultures.

Two of the most important are our attitude toward life and what we like.

What we want to see is an important determining factor.

For example: If you want, or choose, to see the bad, negative, and ugly in life that is what you will see. If you choose to see the good, positive, and beauty in life that is what you will see.

We also have a strong tendency to see what we do, or do not, like.

What do you choose to see and how important is it in manifesting the life you want to experience?

Our mind, consciously and unconsciously, is the main factor in our visual experiences.

It is reality that we harvest what we sow.

During your interior residential living what do you see, how aware of it are you, how satisfied, content, and happy are you with it, and what, if anything, do you choose to do about it?

What is the sum total of your time and experience for your participation on this planet for your ” at home ” life?

We seek to eat food that taste good?

Is it of merit to reside in residential interior designs that are aesthetically pleasing?

Food for thought.