Sanctuary: Taking The "Ho" Out of Home!
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” - Sir Francis Bacon
While collecting the perfect designer wardrobe of the right names with the best accessories from the brands that matter is important, stocking your home with luxury has become recently become de rigeur again. It always mattered but when credit was easy and luxury conglomerates kept upping the ante with ever more bodacious designs that communicated your place in world with all the subtlety of a bullhorn, it seemed better to spend the money on things you could wear or drive daily. Never mind that you were going back to an almost completely empty McMansion with brown sod or 800 sq. ft. condo with a TV and a futon, you looked great! And Posh was here to let you know how to do it for less because, after all, the lower-end luxury goods business is a sham. A farce. In case you didn't know, true luxury goods cannot be purchased by the likes of you and me. It's the open secret, the white elephant in the room. If people knew, this industry would implode.
Real luxury goods are out of reach for most people unless you have a very, very high net worth. We're talking about a Jean Paul Gaultier Le Soirée evening gown for $90,000 or a Kiton K-50 for $50,000. Trust me when I say the dress you got from Cache or the suit you bought at Men's Wearhouse isn't close. However, it is possible to get as much quality as you can for the money you have without necessarily spending a great deal it. It's tough but doable. The one place I don't recommend trying to skimp on is your home, your sanctuary. What does this mean? Buy the best sheets for your bed that you can afford. Have custom drapes made from a favorite fabric or textile you like. Have sheets made from that same fabric. In other words, take the money you save from buying replica watches and accessories and use that to outfit your home in grand fashion. Trust me when I say that the money is better spent there anyway. For example, I purchased the Nancy Koltes duvet set below for, are you sitting?, $100.
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We're talking trade prices here. She also does custom pieces and her work is magnificent. While I had a connection for this particular deal, I've seen some of her sheets going for less at various online sources. You just have to keep an eye out and constantly stay on the hunt.
Ever since purchasing my house, I've been absolutely terrified of doing grave injustices to its interior which has leaded me to essentially doing nothing. We can call it terror or we can be "glass half full" kinda people and say that I’m paralyzed by hope! One of the best things about my house (as well as one of its greatest challenges) is that it has very strong architectural features which can (and will) compete with any furniture piece or art piece I acquire. For example, there are moldings around every window that are very wide and turn every view outside into framed art. This could easily clash with my small but burgeoning art collection. To this point, I don’t have anything on my walls and I plan on keeping it that way for some time.
I guess I'm being a bit dramatic when I say I have done nothing. That's not entirely accurate. I have done very small things to get the house more to a neutral level. I painted every single room, except for the kitchen which is still pale blue, flat beige. The rooms were all different shades before and I needed to see everything in an unobtrusive hue to be able to gauge exactly where I wanted to go with decor. I won't keep the beige scheme but for the purpose of selecting furniture and accessories, this will do for now. Decorating a house is something that should be done over time, organically.
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Edith Wharton's The Mount
Many people get a house or apartment and feel rushed to fill it with a matching suite from Crap, er, I mean Rooms To Go. There's no need to fill a room just because it’s there. Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman's watershed book, The Decoration of Houses, emphasized strong architectural features, e.g. crown molding, baseboards, plasterwork and ceiling treatments, over convoluted furniture with busy textiles surrounded by bric-a-brac.
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Egg and Dart Molding Detail in The Mount's Drawing Room
They believed more simple designs properly utilizing space, symmetry and proportion within a room were the order of the day. Her home, The Mount, in the Berkshires, was the embodiment of the aesthetic she championed, built from the ground up on the principles in her book. This house, and by extension the book, was in direct contrast to “fussiness” of Victorian design which at the time was in full swing. The Mount is undergoing a restoration and some of the biggest names in interior design today are using the book to restore the house’s rooms to their former glory. Charlotte Moss did the drawing room below, using historical photographs as a guide. The furnishings are new. You can see that the detailing of the structure of the room is exquisite.
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The design principles she lauds are best described as classical which is fairly evident. This type of traditional design is absolutely perfect in the envelope that is The Mount but not entirely practical for most people. I wondered for a while whether it could be easily scaled down and not lose any of its impact or grandeur.
Both Wharton and Ogden eschewed eclecticism, which is actually where we agree to disagree. While Wharton and Codman would have fainted at what Michael Taylor and Dodie Rosekrans created out of the latter’s Willis Polk-designed Spanish Renaissance showplace in Pacific Heights, I look at it as inspirational. Below, her collection of Picasso's live in perfect balance with the furnishings and architecture of the room. I would inevitably have to do something similar with my fiancé. His tastes veer toward almost completely modern, in art and fashion, and since we would be dividing our time between my home and his, we’d have to make sure our styles could live in cohesively.
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When I first moved in, in addition to painting, which was made easier by all the horrible brown carpeting that quickly became a built-in drop cloth, I sold a good bit of my existing furniture. I didn’t wake up and instantly hate everything but it was very close to that. I knew that nothing that I owned currently really would work for the way I wanted to live now. My pieces were fairly casual, bordering on beachy, at least in my own estimation. I had more than my fair share of IKEA mixed with some flea market finds that, at the time that I got them, made sense and worked well together. I really didn’t want to continue down that path. I wanted pieces of substance and higher quality, heirlooms that someone would want if I croaked. No more particle board with thin veneers for me! I put it all on Craigslist and said farewell to just about everything. My house would literally be a blank slate. I was determined to get my hands on the highest quality pieces for the lowest prices possible. And so far, I’ve been fairly successful. I wasn’t sure that what I learned shopping for luxury goods and accessories would translate well to the world of upholstery and case goods. But it has.
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I was dreading how I was going to incorporate the traditional cues I loved with the clean lines and sterility, in my opinion, that normally seems to accompany so much of contemporary designs. I mean, I can certainly understand why people tend to seek out contemporary or modern styles whether in homes or furniture because often times traditional elements can overpower a home and its owner's own personality. I happen to love and lean more toward traditional but there is also something magnetic about the form-follows-function of Bauhaus and Mid-century Modern giants like Noguchi and Eames. While the simplicity can be soothing, it’s very easy for modern to become banal at the least or stark and barren at the worst. How could I marry both of these seemingly disparate design themes, the warmth of traditional with the crispness, if you will, of modernity?
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The answer came sometime while I channel surfing YouTube. I happened to be watching some HGTV clips and one of the suggested video showed an interview with Darryl Carter. I watched it and then headed over to Amazon to take a look at his book, The New Traditional. It was a like a thunderbolt hit me! I ordered it on the spot. Modern/post-industrial pieces forming a coalition with traditional furniture and antiques. Now here was a book that says yes, it’s okay to pair an Empire sofa with a Formica covered square that’s doing duty as a coffee table, like below. It’s okay to have a linen-covered sofa next to a primitive table. I always thought that these things could live well together but I suppose I needed validation from some higher authority.
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If you have a small space, you have to be more aware of how you use your space and make sure that you maximize all that you can do within it. In the book, he mentions making a formal dining room moonlight as library, lining it with shelves like below. Small spaces also benefit from artwork on the walls, whether contemporary or classic. Stay away from busy wallpapers!
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This allows the room to get used more frequently. There are no off-limits rooms in Carter’s world. Everything gets used and has the patina requisite of an object that has lived along with the inhabitants of the house. The formality of many of the antiques is reduced with use of matte finishes, tactile fabrics like cotton duck, canvas, linen and even burlap.
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There are no silks, moirés, damasks, velvets or chenilles in any space of his; these fabrics are too precious and too dear. These interiors are as friendly for families as they are high in style. Darryl Carter, having two huge dogs, makes sure that he creates spaces that he himself could use.
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This picture from The New Traditional is what really got me. I semi-recreate it below.
Now, while I won’t be implementing so much of the neutrals, because I like a little more color, I will be allowing my furnishings to take on the sculptural quality that this type of design encourages. That’s what happens in these interiors: the furniture and architectural details, if there is any, pop. You begin to notice the objects and the rooms themselves. The first piece of furniture I purchased for the house was this chair below.
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I got it from the incomparable Upscale Resale in Falls Church before they closed to change locations. If you have never been, please go! Like, right now. The chair is by Maitland-Smith and the quality is absolutely outstanding. It is heavy, sturdy and built to not just last but outlast. And the details on it are amazing. These details stand out more when the chair is viewed against against a neutral backdrop.
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Marlborough Leg with Fretwork on THREE Sides (Great Attention to Detail!)
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Brass Medallion on the Front AND Back
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Brass and Carving Detail on Arm
Now, it was pricey at $1,000 but it has a presence that is unrivaled. When people see it, they comment on it. The carved brass on the arm is usually the first thing mentioned and then fretwork on the leg is second. Again, these are things that would be lost in busy environs. And while it is fairly new, it has an antique air about it. The fabric that was on the chair was a neutral moiré and the fabric I used is an embroidered silk from Kravet.
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I found the bolt of fabric at an antique mall just outside Atlanta for a song. I believe it was some $300 a yard and the whole bolt, which had about six or seven yards on it, cost me $30. I had the fabric for years to use on some project at some point and I knew it would work perfectly on this chair. Embroidered silks like this should only be used for medium- to light-duty furniture in low traffic rooms or drapes. They are far too expensive and delicate to use in, say, a family room.
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The second item I purchased, again from Upscale Resale, was this beautiful Lee Industries sofa above. Talk about sculptural! The big thing with upholstered furniture from anywhere other than a dealer is that you get whatever fabric is already on it. Yes, you could get it redone but depending on how much you paid for the piece, you may end up spending more than cost of the piece itself. I paid only $700 for this sofa, not even close to retail. And luckily for me, the fabric wasn’t very offensive and I found it actually works in context with my current décor. And if I get tired of it, I can just have it recovered and still save money.
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To tie in the couch with what will be going on in other parts of the house, I won these two Belmont silk pillows for $75.00 on Ebay; these bad boys retail for $250 each! Belmont Home Décor is very high-end bedding and it’s worth every penny. I have a set of their sheets in rotation with a Frette set and a Sferra set and I absolutely love them. You’ll wonder why you’ve been sleeping on 60/40 Wal-Mart sheets so long. And considering we spend much of our lives in bed, this should be the first investment you make in yourself besides education.
If you can tell, I wanted to try to do the public spaces of my home first. And that meant choosing a dining room table at some point. I had a sofa and a chair. Not a bad start.
The table you see below is from Hickory Chair’s James River Collection, the oldest line of furniture continually produced since inception in the United States. This particular table is the Richmond Double Pedestal table in a matte, dark finish. Please excuse the shakey, finger-smuged phone picture. I didn't have my camera with me the day I put it up.
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In order to compromise with the fiancé, the finishes on most pieces had to be darker, which was fine with me. He wouldn’t agree to the light paint colors and rugs I wanted unless I agreed and I wanted those more than anything. I planned on using Carter’s tip in The New Traditional of faint colors for walls, trim, rugs and ceilings. This would allow for much bolder fabric choices, like the embroidered silk on the chair above. The trick to using design books is picking out ideas and not strictly adhering to everything you see. Your house still should communicate to everyone who you are and what’s important to you. If your décor happens to be kids toys everywhere and, so be it. That’s who you are and that’s what means the most to you. Maybe when the kids are gone you can have a “grown-up space.” LOL And for the single guys out there using samurai swords for wall art and milk crates as ottomans, please read on.
I actually drove to North Carolina to pick it up. I happened to see it on Craigslist (I search fair afield) being offered by a furniture store for $1,500 that was closing down due to the economy. I didn’t know that the real estate bust had hit certain metropolitan areas in North Carolina so hard! A talk with the store’s owner really opened my eyes about realities for certain businesses. The lowest I've seen the table for online was $3,000, no custom finish. It was a real steal of a deal!:D
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However, I think the best deal I’ve gotten was on this Maitland-Smith chest below. This chest is actually covered completely in hand-tooled, hand-painted leather. It was originally $4,900 and I got it for $1,100, with shipping. I couldn’t pass this deal up. And why did I say ‘with shipping?’ I actually purchased this piece from a fantastic store called Homenclature in Munster, Indiana. I had heard about them via a friend who had purchased a Horchow chest from them off Ebay. My fiancé was in going to Chicago for business and I asked him to let me tag along so I could visit this store.
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Homenclature is the brainchild (“fourth child” if you were to ask them) of Amanda and Shayne Snider. The store is absolutely amazing in that it offers high-end furniture from all the big names at small prices. They even get vintage pieces! And for those of you need help getting your home to look the way you envision, they offer decorator services. I rented a car and drove over. I am so glad I did!
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I also picked up a pair of these Robert Abbey bronze and crystal lamps for $150 and had them sent along. If you are in the Chicago area, I urge you to go meet these people and see their store. If you can’t make it to their store, they have an online store at Ebay that puts some of their most unique pieces up for grabs!
The key to having a home that can grace the cover of a magazine AND be livable is having patience. I’ve seen way too many interior disasters due to people buying things just to fill a room. If anything, Carter’s book really showed me that not only is it okay to take your time, it’s also perfectly fine to mix industrially shelving with a 17th-century sofa. Restoration Hardware seems to have built an empire on this and now I know from whom they got the idea! The thing to keep in mind at all times is your vision. Since I had the vision of what I wanted everything to look like within my house, I can buy things on my own schedule that meet my EXACT criteria. And I don’t have to buy things all at once in fear that nothing I buy later will not coexist well with what I already own. The New Traditional look will allow my furniture and art to take center stage and I’m excited about that.
If you don’t have furniture or access to fine art, get some wainscoting, raised paneling or bead board on the walls to increase visual interest. Put up crown molding to draw the eye up or stain light floors in a dark color to give a blah room a sense of drama. It’s time to stop having a house and make it home. You’re going to be in it for a long time because you can’t really sell it in this market anyway. It’s time to turn your house into a home. Let’s Keep Up Appearances!
