Friday Musings
Good Friday All! I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to the weekend and spending some quality time with my family. I’ll be doing some furniture sourcing at Furnitureland South, which bills itself as the largest furniture store in the world. I also hope to get outdoors and enjoy a hike at one of Charlotte's greenways.
This is what I saw on my nature walk earlier this week.
That's a blue heron in flight. Isn't it glorious?
I hope you found my series, Designing for Small Spaces, helpful! My husband read my posts and said that I am giving away too much of my knowledge. :) He also mentioned that he doesn’t think my (normally humorous) personality is shining through because I’m trying to pack in so much information. Well, truth be told, my personality (like most people) is multifaceted. Sometimes I’m serious and thoughtful, other times I’m silly and playful. It just depends upon the demands of a situation.
Pre-motherhood, I worked as a school psychologist and adjunct psychology professor. Much of my work was technical and academic. I spent a lot of my time teaching and helping people, which I loved. In a way, it’s not so different from my current passion, which is to educate people about good design and help them achieve their design goals. Sometimes I will use humor to do this. Other times my posts will be information heavy. I might just update you on a project and use it to demonstrate both my design aesthetic and rationale for my choices (by the way, I’d love your feedback and questions!).
Most of all, I hope my blog conveys my love of all things beautiful- art, architecture, good design, nature...I’ll let you in on a little quirk of mine. When I see or hear something beautiful, I get goosebumps and become a little weepy. Does this happen to you? The French call this “frisson,” which means “aesthetic chills.”
Speaking of French (yeah, this segue is a bit of a stretch), my husband and I are currently choosing wallpaper for our powder room. I love chinoiserie (derived from the French word “chinois”- see what I did there?) and am trying to convince him that we need color and pattern in our small powder room to punch up the drama. Here are some of the memos (samples) I brought home.
I'm actually trying to find a paper like the one below, but without the full panel repeat since we have wainscoting that goes up to chair rail height.
We have a black and white, marble basketweave tile floor, so I feel we need something bold and saturated to balance the visual weight of the mosaic pattern. The one that works best for our space is the gray and white Schumacher. In contrast, my husband’s eye is drawn to soft, subtle patterns, which just won’t do. By far, my husband (bless his heart) is my most challenging client. For instance, when we were building our home, I picked out an orb chandelier for our study. His reaction was literally, “How could you do this to me? I hate orbs!”
Once all our lighting fixtures were installed, guess which his favorite was? Yup, the orb. I may have to just override his desires for the powder room and go with my gut, but in the meantime, I am trying to find something that he loves too. Much thanks to my vendor, Allison (from The Paper House Collection in Charlotte), for her patience.
I hope you enjoy your weekend! What will you be doing for fun?
Cheers,
Claudia
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