One of the things I’ve been talking about a lot is practicality. The first question I ask of any design nowadays is, is it easy to clean? I’m pretty sure it makes me sound like a cleaning freak, but if you’ve ever been to my house, you’ll know the opposite is true!
My holy grail is a house that cleans itself. Which is probably why I keep asking this question – I want a beautiful house but I don’t want to spend a lot of time cleaning it, so I will do anything I can to minimise cleaning time.
This attitude is somewhat at odds with my aesthetic sense, because I love intricate craftsmanship and shiny glamour. So I’m having to be ultra choosy in allowing myself to indulge in some of this, but not so much that it will end up becoming a nightmare to maintain a nice house. Goodbye intricately carved bookcase, goodbye mirrored console table. *sigh*
The other question is that of practicality. I have a low tolerance level for anything that is convoluted to make work. This applies mostly to software, but also extends to real-world objects. So in the house design, I try to think about things like how easy is it to reach, how easy is it to use. I’ll spend a bit of time doing walk-through scenarios, and mock-ups with masking tape.
Therefore the pictures that I’m using in this blog don’t necessarily speak to my aesthetic style, rather they speak more to my functional ideals.
So in defining my style, I guess a modern aesthetic suits this sentiment quite nicely. But I do also like glamorous and vintage accents. So perhaps my style, if I had to give it a label, could be called “contemporary with a touch of vintage glamour”. Of the “official” styles I’ve seen about the place, I think it comes somewhere between contemporary and modern classic.
But you know, I could change my mind next week!
