My philosophy on decorating

Here are a couple of things you should know about my decorating tastes. First off, wrought iron speaks to me.

I sit on chairs that look like this...


I eat with utensils that look like this...


I illuminate rooms with things like these...


I don't much like floral patterns on couches or drapes. In fact, I can barely tolerate drapes. The closest I have ever come to hanging draperies is placing a simple swag across the top of a window, mounted of course with a wrought iron bracket. I like soft oversized pillows and lots of them. I like mixing vivid abstract patterns with soft brocaded beaded pillows.

I like dusky greens, warm grays and accents of yellow paint to add warmth and color. I like sponging the kitchen walls and bathrooms with all the left over paint samples to create a unique concoction of colors that look like rough, hewn stone. I like to paint boys' bedrooms bright orange or lime green with blue accents. I like to hand paint messages along the top of a wall in a foreign language...just because I can.

I like original and quirky art. I like to surround myself with pieces that friends have created or by artists that I have personally met. I have a statue made by a Kansas City artist using Indiana limestone in my hallway that I got at a art fair one summer, a painting of the Duomo painted by a woman in Florence who I met on the street in Italy and ceramics thrown on a potters wheel by a college friend in a studio that used to be next to mine. My own paintings are strewn about the premisis and are perpetually changing locations depending upon my mood. I have a hand tinted print on the wall outside my office that reads: "We lay there and looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own."

My philosophy on decorating: nothing should really "go" with anything else, if it does, you are trying to tell someone else's story. Eclectic is good. If you surround yourself with the things that you love, you create your own personal style. I mix old with new, iron with wood, neutrals with brights, and straight and angular with soft and plushy. I like the yin and the yang of all the opposing forces. At any rate, your stuff should tell a lovely story about who you are and where you have been. Accumulate the stuff that speaks to you above all other things, and you will create a comfortable space to hang out in. No one can really tell you how to decorate. Never hire a decorator. It is your space. You have to imagine it on your own.