Inside Beautiful Homes and Havens

​Be it a cottage, a nest, a classic or a mansion, one’s home is a personal and intimate place.  Homes are reflections and projections of their owners and occupants.  Most homes are desired havens from the external contrasts where individuals work, visit and take care of life’s other necessities.
 
When the interior design of someone’s home is entrusted to a professional team, it is an extraordinary privilege.  In order to achieve and deliver the personal vision of a residential client, design professionals must actually intrude upon that client’s tastes, dreams and comfort-zones.  Your designer must learn not only what you want for your home, but also how you feel about that environment.

With innovative use of color and lighting, even an odd corner at the turn of a staircase becomes warm and inviting!

Those feelings become primary influences on colors, lighting, textures and materials suggested by your team.  Interpreting and translating your feelings about your home is an essential skill for experienced professional designers.
 
For many folks, their home is the epicenter from which their life radiates, outward.  It can be a symbol and a measure of their success in their society.  For some, it is the place that promises the peace and the inside sanctum where love and kids and pets and hobbies and old family recipes and unannounced relatives, neighbors and friends collide.
 
A prototype design, a remodel or even the simplest refreshment of a home is a category of interior design that stands distinctly apart from other challenges.  Working within someone’s home environment is intensely personal.  Although there may be linkage for a client in the character of their home and business sites, a main distinguishing difference lies in the implied demeanors expected in those sites.   Business is business, after all; and, home is respite!
 
Your home vision may have children all over it, with accommodation for all the paraphernalia and pets that complete that package.   Perhaps your gourmet culinary avocation drives the design.  You may wish to emulate family origins and history – or that of your geographical location.  You may be the host of hosts, regularly filling your home to the rafters with guests, music and celebration.  Your design team needs to know!
 
The materials favored by a client can create a defining design direction, and it is important to discuss such preferences.  For instance, featuring native stone and wood, considering the exact site’s existing amenities (such as water) and bringing those characteristics into the interior design will bring your interior vision into closer relevant focus.
 
Is cozy and cloistered your cup-of-tea?  Is sweeping open space for games, dancing and kids’ wrestling matches what is needed – for now – then convertible in the future when the tide turns?  Will you need a small home office tucked in, an exercise room or a studio for hobbies?  How about a mega media center?  Brainstorm all such ideas in your discussions, at the front end of the planning.
 
You might have more than one home, perhaps, a primary residence and a get-away.  If so, they probably reflect different needs, moods and activities.  A cottage at the ocean or in the mountains, or a time-share condo where you gather the family to ski, fish or swim would probably indicate a contrasting design approach. 
 
Whatever the combinations, communication is at the heart of your designer’s ability to understand the personality of your residence and deliver the vision you have in mind.