Interior inspiration

I’ve been immersing myself in home design studies lately (one of my many obsessions of 2013). And suddenly Pinterest is incredibly interesting and useful to me again.

Primary online inspiration

• My Scandinavian Home
• Freunde von Freunden
• The Selby
• The Socialite Family
• Industrial, loft-inspired Tumblrs, like Blood and Champagne and Sojorner (even if they are all just re-posting the same images over and over)

Favorite books

Of the 30 or so I’ve devoured, these are my favorites.

• The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton
• The Comforts of Home, Caroline Clifton-Mogg
• Domino: The Book of Decorating, ed. Deborah Needleman
• Good Bones, Great Pieces, Suzanne McGrath and Lauren McGrath
• Lotta Jansdotter’s Handmade Living, Lotta Jansdotter
• The Perfectly Imperfect Home, Deborah Needleman

I do wish our library had more books by the real, traditional designers (e.g., Dorothy Draper; even want to read Edith Wharton’s book on home design), but the hefty stack I’ve gone through so far has certainly refined my personal taste.

Opinions I have only very recently formed

• I don’t really like American interior design blogs. For one, all of their homes tend to look the same; and two, I don’t like the way they look (every room is a different color; chevrons and Marrakesh patterns on every conceivable wall and rug; unnecessarily painted furniture, etc.). Three, not everything you buy has to be subjected to some DIY project. Often, it is good and pleasing to leave things alone.
• Accordingly, white is the only acceptable color for walls. (Although I could tolerate extremely pale, washed-out colors in some small rooms. Or a light gray.)
• We do not need more things.
• Countries whose interior aesthetics I generally admire: France, Japan, any country considered part of Scandinavia
• Beware of trends.
• A room that looks like it was designed by someone is not a room I want to live in. Rooms should be real and livable and welcoming.
• Deborah Needleman knows everything that is useful to know.

Home aesthetic goals

Aspiring to a home that is…

• Welcoming and comfortable.
• Outfitted with only the beautiful and necessary pieces. (Loving the Shaker dictum: “Do not make anything that is not both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, be sure that it is also beautiful.”)
• Replete with allusions to nature.
• Capable of eschewing the principles of wabi sabi. Whatever that means in actual practice.
• Creative.

Again, have no idea how all of these things would be realized. But they are what I’m thinking about right now. I don’t pretend to know anything about all of this. But I like learning and forming (bizarrely strong) opinions just the same.