To Trend or Not To Trend? NOT!

A couple of years ago, one of my designer friends suggested that I might like a particular product since I do so much modern design.  Huh?!  I don’t do modern!  Well, not really.  I don’t think so anyway.  Personally, I prefer traditional with clean simple lines without a lot of heavy ornate details.  Blue is my favorite color.  I am drawn to botanical and foliage prints.  Sucker for “Americana” color palettes, modern, transitional, traditional, or whatever.  I love me some red, white, and blue.  Do I design projects for my clients that are my style?  Not once and here’s why.  Any good professionally trained interior designer appreciates art and design style of all types and periods.  We see it for what it is and recognize its beauty as it is represented.   I do not tell my clients what style they want, they tell me.   Sometimes we have to work out what that style is, but we find our way there.   Professional interior designers are creatives.  We have studied art and architecture of other creatives in awe, (sometimes “awe”ful).   There is no better way to get creative than for someone to prompt you with a design challenge that’s out of the box different.  We have that bring-it-on attitude, challenge accepted.    

I do see a trend going more traditional, thank goodness.  The colors and patterns are bold and daring!  My favorite color is blue.  Apparently it appears that about two-thirds of the kitchens that have won awards or that I have seen in trade magazines have blue cabinets.  The same for bathrooms or bars.  Oh, it makes me smile!  Green is another big color trend, but it’s in more than cabinetry.  It’s in the upholstery, area rugs, draperies, and accessory art.  Green is a bold brave color.  I am proud to say I have clients who are BOLD AND BRAVE with the green.  And, you know who you are!  Thank you so much!!  

So if you are tired of what the internet, retail box stores, and HGTV is trying to sell and pass off as good design, maybe it’s time to let go and be brave!  Don’t fall for what all those sources tell you what you want.  You decide what you want.  Is your house 50 shades of grey?  Don’t take the easy way out choosing everything “GREIGE” !  Are you tired of feeling like you have to pick modern furniture, geometric patterns, brushed nickel finishes, etc.?  Then don’t settle!  It’s your house!  You can do in your house whatever you want.   LET….ME…HELP…YOU!

Really, if you want to do something in your house that will be timeless and make you happy, then DO NOT FOLLOW TRENDS!  Follow your heart and that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you see something special.  No one else gets it but you.  That’s okay.  You are the one who lives there.   I have been telling my clients for years not to do those small scale linear tile mosaic backsplashes in their kitchens.  Y’all know who you are.  When there are peal and stick plastic sheets that look like those exact mosaic tiles on the shelves of retail box stores, you can pretty much guarantee IT’S A TREND.  Don’t go there!    Sounds easy, but letting go and allowing yourself to like and want something that might go against trends is not easy.  It’s a muscle that you need to practice.  The more you use it the better you get at letting go and allowing you to be you.

I am ready to get creative!  There is so much happening in the world of design with color and pattern that I am chomping at the bit to let go and DESIGN!