The most successfully designed and admirable projects always take a holistic approach. Even without professional resources at hand, the more

Do you have a favorite chair? Have you ever thought that your chair preference is a reflection of your culture and a long history? Certainly I can’t imagine my life without chairs of some sort, especially since I spend most of my day perched on my HAG Capisco chair! I’ve been curious about interesting chairs for some time, maybe because I’ve been on many a chair hunt for client project over the years. Ultimately a chair needs to be entirely suitable for the use it will be put

We humans are all influenced by what we experience about us. In fact we can never quite escape this completely—we are simply wired this way. What we experience becomes part of our comfort level and even our identity. It is familiar, which allows us to feel some level of safeness, because we are less stressed by the familiar. This innate feeling could not be more powerfully felt than in the ways we experience—and choose—the colors around us. I recently attended an industry lec

There is sometimes great joy and pleasure in seeing favorite, comfortable and comforting furniture and furnishings come to new life with a well-done facelift. Or perhaps even a wonderful room updated is just enough. Not everything needs to be completely redone, tossed out forever. Sometimes you want to keep the things you have loved, refreshed, rejuvenated and ready for years of new life. This approach still needs a designerly eye, but the effort is particularly worthwhile, e

How many times have you picked up a snazzy home-design magazine, drooled over images of perfect-upon-perfect rooms, and wondered if there had ever been any people present? We love to see pages and pages of gorgeous rooms full of great paint colors, super sofas, cool light fixtures, fabulous art, etc. But … invariably there is never a person in sight (for any number of reasons, including privacy concerns). And so we tend to forget that the rooms are always designed in consider

Today’s fashions are tomorrow’s castaways. In many ways this has always been true throughout history. But the tyranny of style-dictators has