How I Curate a Beautiful Home with Meaningful Pieces: Time.
a corner of my living room in Connecticut
I can't tell you that I have a specific take on interior design, other that I like beautiful things and I love history. Even though I am renting where we live right now, it is the pieces that I have that I've carried with me over my life that make the space our own. For instance, in this picture, everything tells a story to me. The rug came from my parents, and the “acclaim” side table by Lane in the late 1960s and the mid century lamp both came from my favorite antique store in the whole world, Marika’s, which is on Shelter Island, New York.
The lampshade was part of an estate collection in a sale at Sothebys in New York where I worked for seven years. The shade was new on an antique lamp and the specialists decided it didn't work for the sale so it was up for grabs and I took it home. There's also a Russian wooden box that belong to my son's father, and a bronze sculpture that I made in college at RISD. The guitar belonged to my dad. That throw is by Sferra and it is one of my favorite things. The funny part is it actually came in a gift bag from an event that I snuck into with three or four other friends, 20 some years ago in the meatpacking District in New York.
The footstool is part of a chair by West Elm and my sofa is from Ikea.
This bar cart, again, came from Marika’s on Shelter Island. SI is a magical place in it’s own right, and I think I need a whole other blog posts just to talk about that. This chair on the right belong to my grandparents and it had a wicker seat which fell apart overtime. I restrung it with neon Paracord and it's a very strong chair. I got glass cut for the top of the bar cart and put an old mirror on the bottom, where the glasses are. Some of that is my grandmother's old Baccarat glasses that I took in a shopping on an airplane all wrapped in newspaper as my carry on item once.
For the artwork there to oil paintings by me, a portrait of one of my great great, great grandfather's and then an antique Chinese print the belong to my grandparents and a drawing by my son. To the right is a print from an art exhibition in Puerto Rico from 1968 that came from my mom.
All of that is to say. It takes time. Because I would never want to just throw out everything and start all over again. I love having the stories come with me, and the people who these things were attached to come with me to wherever I go.
