Bill makes the world work better

Bill Butts. Funny name, funny guy, amused by life and college boys who couldn't install a set of inside mount roman shades if their degree hung in the balance. That's why there's Bill; to make the world work better. With the words, "He's just a handyman," a client once questioned Bill's suitability for a task. Yeah, like Lance Armstrong is a guy who rides bikes.

Bill understands the physical world of created living spaces. If you need to convert an antique small dining table into a big one, he'll do the carpentry wizardry and  pull off the refinishing so the one who made the table a hundred years ago would swear, were he available, that he made it a lot larger (and somehow more elegant) than he intended. That kind of thing, most especially magic with wood, its joinery and surfaces.

But not just wood, problems. In my SoHo project, no one could get the drapes to slide smoothly. Bill looked, went shopping and got an unusual silicon that made the drapery rings flow like kids in a water park chute. That toilet flap, this electrical line that keeps tripping a breaker, that water feature pump that wont...

Bill solves. There's a Hebrew expression Tikkun Olam (TO), which means repairing the world. Nah, not quite that. Bill'd snort and light a Marlboro...outside, he's respectful. Not quite TO  but tending in that direction. Bill just knows how things work, and there are so many times when he's more what you need than Lance Armstrong, a rocket scientist or a husband who incorporates phrases like Tikkun Olam in your blog posting.

You say tomato, I say vastu shashtra

   I received a call from an architect saying that the out-of-state daughter of an Indian client had expressed concern about the placement of a garage in the plan for a proposed home. I said to myself, vastu shastra, for that is what the Indian way of assessing whether a living space (or a temple) is in harmonious relationship with nature is called. I don't have enough exposure to V.S. to know much about where it is congruent with feng shui and where it differs.

 I am aware that in vastu shashtra the five elements of creation are air, water, earth, fire and space, whereas in feng shui the view is that the constituent parts are water, wood, earth, fire, metal. I also know that prana in the Indian conceptual framework is the equivalent of chi or qi in the Chinese tradition. Both mean life force energy, though there may well be important differences in the understanding of that energy in the two cultures.

I have also learned that while their approaches are largely derived from feng shui, the Japanese talk about fusui when they are discussing similar issues and energies and the Koreans speak of pung yu. Again, though I am looking forward to a trip to Japan with my husband this fall, I know virtually nothing about the Japanese, Korean or Indian variants on the traditional methodologies for attempting to harmonize living spaces with nature. I'm intrigued, though, by the evidence that most Asian cultures apparently have a systematic way of gauging how their dwellings are or are not in accord with natural principles.

I know also that indigenous peoples around the world have similar systems and that ancient European tribes used geomancy for the same purpose. Feng Shui, at least as we receive it in Western popularizations, isn't free of superstition . Nonetheless, from my experience, respectful interdependence with nature and common sense are at the center of so much of feng shui and, I assume, of vastu shashtra, fusui and pung yu.

Sacred spaces

I recently read Barbara Brown Taylor's Altars of the World. It's good, eloquent about the "everyday sacred" of our lives. Flashed me back to a little article I did on sacred spaces in a feng shui context (with my Lines of Connection guy looking over my shoulder) for a local mag. The not wonderfully edited article is posted in the Media  section of the site, but  I don't expect any of your who may be  out there to devote the better part of your life (at the moment) to absorbing my vision. So, I will give you the distilled version of that piece on sacred spaces. Why? It's an important concept to me, to feng shui in which I believe, to my design work, and I hope it may be of use to you.

Sacred spaces, whether Gothic cathedral, grove of redwoods or your bedroom, brim with vibrant, flowing, creative energy- in a feng shui context we're talking about chi. By nature they are spaces conducive to elevating consciousness and concentrating intentionality. If man-made, these are spaces with good feng shui that mirror the balance inherent in nature. A constructed space with good feng shui is a space that brings nature into your home and work space. In part that is accomplished by incorporating the actual or symbolic (through color) representation of nature's five elements: water (black), wood (green), earth (yellow), fire (red/orange) and metal (white). Good feng shui is served by design that incorporates those elements in a harmonious and balanced way.

Clutter, a word that comes from "clot," blocks good feng shui, obscures the light of clarity and is a primary enemy of flowing chi. An essential prerequisite to creating a sacred space is clearing clutter.

A sacred space can be any room but a meditation room is a lovely place to create a sacred space. That space will be a mirror of you and may well be enriched by artifacts - treasured photographs, rocks you've picked from special places in nature, your favorite incense, symbols such as a labyrinth, a cross, a Star of David - that are crystallizations of your consciousness and intentionality. These symbols and artifacts may well be concentrated on a place you designate as an altar, but they may also be placed with your intuitive care throughout your living (or work) spaces.

Consider including sound in the form of music, bells, crystal chakra bowls, cymbals or other sources that bring you relaxing and pleasing sound. Subdued light and the illumination of candles is helpful, and incense and essential oils brings in the element of air .Lavender is calming, rosemary energizing and the fragrance of rose brings joy.

The design and use of color of your sacred space may be challenging, but if you take your open heart into silence and allow intuition to flow, you are very likely to find a way to create a space that suits you and facilitates the flow of what you need.

To create a sacred space is a sacred endeavor, one deserving the best of your attention. Ultimately that space, be it meditation room, bedroom, living room, whatever, should be the embodiment of your hopes, dreams and intentions; it should be the embodiment, the physical manifestation, of your highest self.

Making It Pretty

I wanted to make myself look pretty. I'd take my sidewalk chalk; get a pop bottle cap; drizzle a few drops of water from the sink, and grind the chalk to a paste. I'd dip my five-year old finger in the paste, and make up my eyes in blue, green, purple or pink. I couldn't understand why my mother laughed...

I wanted to make the world look prettier. One afternoon in April, I looked out the dining room window during Sunday dinner and the thought ran through my six-year-old head: "Those yellow tulips would look better with red stripes." I had to finish my peas, but as soon as that was done, real quiet, I found my way to the garage, where I knew my dad had a can of red spray paint. I shook it and - careful,wasn't easy - did red stripes, one, two, three, on each fat yellow tulip. My dad said, "You think you know better than mother nature?" I looked sad, but inside I told myself, "Maybe I do..."

I wanted to give presents to my mom, dad, my brother Frankie, my first grade teacher. My dad had terra cotta ( I didn't know those words) pots. They'd make great cookie jars if I could make a lid. There were saucers. My dad and I went to the hardware and bought knobs for dresser drawers and he helped me glue knobs on saucers to make lids. He had a can of yellow and I did the pots yellow and made a few Mexican and painted tulips on the rest. It was a first attempt to repurpose something, though that computer world word didn't exist. But it was transformation. I didn't know that word either but eventually it became a big idea for me.

 That's some of how I began tinkering to make what I saw look better. It was a long road: years of typing; selling fabric; sewing; transforming and selling sweatshirts; designing and sewing window treatments, duvets, pillows; art and design classes; and then -slowly - putting together whole rooms and - gradually - parts of houses and whole houses. It was learning to look at a room as a composition, but not just as an aesthetic object, also a functional one for which durability, cost and comfort are considerations; a composition where color, line, texture work together for harmony, usefulness and - you hope - surprise and delight.

That tricky quality of harmony/balance (synonyms in design)is about relationship: this texture and that color, this heavy table and the delicate light next to it... all the color, furniture, art, lighting, plants - the forms, lines, hues, textures in a particular space. It isn't rocket science, but it's tricky and takes an eye, and while there are many gifts not mine, I have an eye. It can drive me, my daughter or husband crazy, but if they're wearing a garment that is slightly too high contrast, uh uh; or if there's a hair on a shirt, I'll get it at 50 paces. That's a mixed blessing, but it equips me for design work.

Which, in the final analysis is mostly about relationships and harmony. I took a walk in the park with said husband and daughter dog Diva yesterday and husband asked me if the creek in November exemplified design principles. I'll spare you the details, but the short version is: totally; the color, light, look of the icy water over stone, the brown leaves fallen or about to fall constitute an exquisite harmony, perfect for that place.

The light of Florida would be too bright; a tiny dose of the Southwest's vegetation would jar. But that shale, and the brown of the bank and the thousand subtly different foliage browns, the fewer yellows and roseates and the straggling greens slipping more slowly into the dormant season - all of that was in wonderful balance and harmonious relationship. And so much of what we try to do in design is translate the perfection we see in nature into living spaces. When I went through feng shui training, I found deeper understanding of that truth.

The other way relationship is central to a positive client design experience is that the designer-client connection requires care and humility on the designer's part, the only part I can control. It's not a matter of my taste; it should be the clients. I might lobby passionately for this color and that fabric, for my best vision, but it has to come down to what will be most pleasing to him or her. You put your personality and preferences aside and achieve the best possible vision of the client. I will address this complicated issue in future word bouquets to the blogosphere. For now, suffice to say interior design isn't about the designer; it's about relationships in a variety of senses; and it's an activity where you create balance, usefulness, comfort, beauty.

I'm still trying to make it all prettier, and transform it when transformation is called for. I've also learned that the way it looks is only part of the story. There are other issues like integrity, human connection, a service ethic and a process allowing fun. I will always want to make it pretty, but I'm now accepting, as I didn't when I was six, that nature was right about the tulips and everything else, and that it is advisable to pay attention to what is already there; to listen to what people (clients) say they want; and to try your best to make it happen for them.

Color: Part One

If I could do one of those time-lapse photos and capture a single tree through the seasons, you'd better grasp the whole picture of color. Next to my garage there is an Amelanchier, or Serviceberry, which celebrates spring with white April blossoms. The 10-foot wonder evolves from May's lime green freshness to July's less brilliant, less perky deep green. Coursing with life-changing chemicals, the tree rounds its seasonal turn in September and gradually moves into a stunning brick red; from there the color browns and loses saturation. Now, as I look in January, the Serviceberry is a minimalist sculpture. It's color wheel, morphing over the seasons - lime to deep green to red to black, is a mirror of nature and a reflection of the changing quality of light over a year. That varying light has correlations with human mood, aesthetic quality, level of energy. But it ain't simple

The brilliant lime of spring is more ebullient, bouncy, sparky, than the muted, darkly sensuous greens of mid-summer. The red of late September is sensual and even aggressive, but it's also earthy and...mature. As the leaves move into October, November and brown out, they are autumn leaves, muted, cooler.

Color is its own language and hard to translate into words; the variables of hue, saturation, brightness, gloss foster intricacy. For now, just know that color is a mirror of nature and changing light; that the spectrum makes up a whole, and that we all pick and choose parts of that whole we like more or less.

Perky sunshine-shoveling yellow, for example, tends to arouse either love or aversion. Like purple it is one of those colors that is non-negotiable. When I do a color consultation in a client's home, one of the questions I ask is, "How do you feel about yellow?" Yellow gets strong responses.

Another question is, "Do you like blue or green?" Again we can't help but wander into complexity. There are warm blues and cool greens and an infinite variety of hues between those poles. For the most part, though, blue is a cool and green is warm. That certainly doesn't mean that if blue is your favorite color, you are a cold fish. You may, be passionately warm and seeking the calming, balancing effect of blue. But blue and green is a boundary and people tend to line up on one side or the other.

There are winter palettes - gray, blue, icy, soft; and summer palates - dark green and pinks and the crispy blue of a summer sky; and fall palettes, with wheat and camel and brick red and pumpkin; and, yes, there are those mangos, limes and scarlets of spring. There are houses in Ohio with a Florida palette and houses in Florida with a cooling Ohio palette balancing the aggressive brilliance of those Florida colors. There is no color that is better or hipper or more sophisticated than another. If they are chosen with a discerning eye, all living-space color compositions can be worthy of Architectural Digest.

Which is where I come in. We talk, I offer possibilities. We discuss the possibilities and you choose. It's a true collaboration. What I offer is a gift for listening to you and another gift for pulling together the possibilities. For whatever combination of reasons, it's something I do well, possibly because I love it and it is a form of play.

Clodagh on domestic tranquility

The New York Times  recently went shopping with Irish native, Big Apple-based interior design hero Clodagh. In the daily, the feng shui illuminated designer is quoted as saying, "Your home environment should be your nanny." It should make you feel "welcomed and warmed" as soon as you walk in the door. I am in total agreement. I believe every room of your home should embrace you with its aesthetically satisfying harmony.

True to her feng shui training, Clodagh asserts in the Times and in all her writing that clutter, mess and disorder are the enemies of that warm and tranquil feeling we seek to create. Clodagh is also true to her f.s. lineage when she enjoins us to invest in a good, tranquility-inducing water feature in our entryways.

In the Times, Clodagh counsels us to evict furniture from a previous and negatively charged relationship, and to spend our money, wisely, on a mattress and a good dining table - the latter to encourage gathering and community. The table the one-named designer chose in the Times retails for a challenging $9,000, but I've seen some lovely ones lately at both Arhaus and Create and Barrel for less than a fourth of that amount. 

Clodagh's most recent book is Your Home, Your Sanctuary. I will have more to say on home as scantuary when I spend a few words on Barbara Brown Taylor's Altar in the World. 
Jo

An Inspiration Point for your kitchen renovation

The kitchen is the heart of most homes and re-doing a kitchen is almost invariably the most expensive and involved home renovation there is. Why? You're talking multiple systems - electrical, plumbing, lighting - and a lot of hardware, some of it tending to push the budgetary envelope. You're not going to pick up that Viking stove, Sub-Zero fridge or even the Grohe faucet at the dollar store. And even if you're not climbing toward the top of the line, kitchen elements of reasonable quality will not be inexpensive. Moreover, the range and variety of components like cabinetry and counter tops is dazzling, but it's easy to find yourself in information overload, which can paralyze you in your selection process.

Unless you're Warren Buffet, you really have to create a budget and try to work within it - and Buffet would probably choose a budget boundary. Concrete countertops are fabulous but granite, yes, may be more affordable; there are now cool laminates, and the saving will pay for a good portion of that refrigerator. Same with cabinetry. There is a virtually infinite variety. Just remember that what is inside, the cabinetry's infra-structure - the spice section, shelves for cups, etc.- is as important as what's outside, and that the hinges, hardware and drawers have to stand up to a lot of use. A pressed wood cabinet box may serve, but you may want hardwood cabinet doors and good quality hinges, slides and pulls.

Form follows function.. If you use your kitchen as a base from which to make reservations (we're not judging), your kitchen function will call for a very different form than that of a largish family which makes and serves elaborate meals in that part of their home. For most of us, our kitchens are rooms where we create nourishment and also nurture each other emotionally