Here is the fourth excerpt from the new book that comes out on March 28th. You can check out the central book post here to find other excerpts and all the info.
The Heart
Beth had a beautiful one bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive in the northern part of Manhattan. With windows facing the Hudson River and generously proportioned rooms, there was no reason why it should be anything less than impressive, but it wasnt. When Beth called me, she said her apartment felt unfinished and blah. She had moved in five years earlier and had all the furniture she needed, but something was wrong. When we got to talking an interesting story came out.
When she moved in, she was single and didnt care too much about her apartment. In this way, Beth was a typical cool person. She just had wanted her apartment to work. Now, she felt differently. She had been buying colorful clothes for the past year and her whole wardrobe was changing. Now, she wanted her home to be more colorful, AND she wanted it to be finished.
Beth was also in love. She had just starting dating a new man and her life and emotions were beginning to flow again after a long dry spell. Compared to her emotional life right now, her apartment was stuck in the past. Though it had great bones and breathing, it was a white box with beige furniture, light brown wood floors and not much on the walls. There was no color anywhere. It had no heart.
Over the next two months, with colors and fabric that came from Beths wardrobe, she systematically injected color throughout the apartment. Starting with the floor, she refinished it and stained it a dark mahogany. This grounded and warmed each room. The walls received new coats of soft off-white paint which warmed them up considerably. She had the couch and chairs recovered in bright colors that stood out against the off-white walls and dark floor. The apartment came to life.
As Beth put color into her home, she was feeding the heart flow in her life, and it continued to grow stronger and stronger. And that man she was dating? He would eventually become her husband.
The Heart element is a tricky thing to define as it refers to the emotional life of your home. When considering the heart of your home, the best way to understand and work with it is to first think about which elements give it passion. Elements that form style, such as color, shape, texture and even scent affect us immediately and consciously when we walk into a room. If an apartment is well arranged, it will be comfortable, but if it has these four elements, it can be beautiful as well.
A room stirs our emotions by leading our attention to a few strong elements, while the rest sit quietly in the background. Successful style is all about dramatic touches used sparingly. Most of the elements of a room should go practically unnoticed at first glance, while a few play a starring role, such as a vase of flowers, brightly colored lampshades or a commanding piece of art. If you have too many things jostling for attention, your home will be too busy and over stimulated, but if you dont have any, your home will lack pizzazz.
Inspired by the excerpts that have been put up here, and Jennifer's examples of the cure - I spent a couple hours this weekend, and ended up clearing out 2 bags of clothing, 1 bag of shoes, a box of random 'stuff' for donating, plus i threw out 2 garbage bags worth of stuff.
THanks for the inspiration Maxwell, Jenifer, AT, everyone!
This is a lovely story, well told.
It's funny, my little red lampshade is the first thing people remark on when visiting. It's small and tucked away in a corner under a print that also has red tones. The rest of the apartment is predominantly beech and charcoal and steel. But that little lamp glows so prettily at night. At least one spot clicks; now to work on the rest of the place!
Maxwell, you're such a sweetie.
I was just inspired to go paperless on two of my credit card accounts... maybe a third after I post this.
And may tackle my front closet this weekend.
Hmmmm, decluttering with a St. Patrick's Day hangover...
I will either throw EVERYTHING out, or get all weepy and sentimental and toss nothing.
Hey P[too] --
Watch the whole paperless accounts thing and make sure your bank gives you all of the information that you get on old-fashioned paper. I started using paperless statements a few years ago, and I loved not having the paper around. This year, I did my taxes early, but I only got part of my refund -- the IRS had "lost" one of my checks! [I'm a freelancer and file quarterly.] All I needed was a copy of my cashed check. When I went back into my stash of handy account statements on my computer, they didn't have pictures of my checks like my old statements. The whole upshot of this is that my bank charged me five bucks for something I used to get for free! I've reluctantly switched back to the old paper-based statements for my main bank account. When you switch to paperless statements, just make sure that you get everything you used to...
Sentiment truly is the enemy of minimalism.
I give up.
Henrietta gives up, due to sentimentality. Max writes about dramatic touches used sparingly. Cathy Horyn implied in a recent fashion report in the NYT that storytelling is de facto out of fashion because modernism is not about storytelling. So it seems, and I know Max is a modernist, that these dramatic touches we design in our apartments cannot tell too much of a story. And that's where Henrietta is having trouble. The sentimentality (the story) is so compelling.
Meanwhile, we struggle over on the contest posts commentary section about places that look too designy. When they're too perfect, they don't have any story left. Or it's someone else's story, not their own, perhaps ...
Thanks, Mary, good tip (bad experience, but good tip!). I'll keep an eye out.
But yes, "tax time" has been the reason I'd not gone paperless yet...
ps: Good to see you at the party!
I think modernism leaves room for storytelling. It just requires more imagination to spin the yarn.
Can we look at it this way - when one is depressed and with not many resources at hand creativity inside the front door is one of the ways to express oneself.
The house takes on a budget friendly tune.
I have found that when giving someone permission to let their bedroom become a sensual boudoir- there is an instant light that fires that I can see in their eyes and spirit. There is a creative spark that sets off a wild fire within that is expressed in the outer (the bedroom)and comes back to that person opening up to a greater sense of themselves.
What an honor to witness.