Apartment foo-nishing

[zalb916]



I knew nothing about rugs before starting this project. I learned a little bit here, but then went off and did my own research elsewhere. This goes to my point about refining one's own taste: the more you learn, the more your preferences tend to change.

The above quote about refining your taste struck me, because I've actually learned a lot from you about refining taste in terms of clothing. You refined your taste over the years by trying different styles, makers, etc. You figured out what you like and what looks good on you, as opposed to what you thought you would like or what you thought would look good. You did this through practice, experimentation, etc. It took time and trial and error of just living in your clothes. You changed your coats from one button to 3-roll-2. You ditched a tiemaker for another. You found the One Shoe. These helped you refine your taste. I enjoyed observing the process and learned a lot from it.

You haven't lived in this new apartment very long, but it appears to be almost completely designed. You lived with your clothes. Live in your apartment. You will find quirks about where the light comes through the window, and that will affect what type of lamp you want. You will find yourself taking a certain path to the bathroom, but always having to angle your body around the table that was seemingly perfectly placed in the mock-up. You will want to throw your coat on a hook that is hung in a different place than you did in your last place. Live in your apartment, like you lived in your clothes.

You can learn a lot researching rugs on the internet, but it can't truly refine your taste. I also did a ton of research on rugs before I bought one for the living room in my first house. I found what I thought was the perfect rug. It fit my aesthetic. It was made of high quality, natural materials. It was even made in Georgia, which I thought was good, because it meant a) I was buying American and b) the rug was made in the state where I grew-up. Maybe silly, but not insignificant to me. Anyways, the damn thing hasn't stopped shedding for nearly three years. It drives me insane to constantly be vacuuming. I vacuum so much that I wind-up leaving the vacuum out a lot. Now that I've lived with the rug, the shedding is ugly. The vacuum always visible is ugly. All the damn internet research, but it took me living in my house to figure out the rug was not tasteful.

You can research as much as you want on any subject: wine, cameras, etc., but it's not just about learning. You acquire taste with actual experience. While you may have a lot of knowledge about design and some practical experience with furniture, you don't have the experience with this new setting. That's not your fault. It just takes time.

At the end of the day, I think your place looks very nice, and I think you have good taste. However, it seems that you need to experience living in your home, not just have a good eye for nice looking things and doing some online research, before knowing what will be tasteful in your home.

 

[Ernie]

I'm no artist. That's funny though.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

A passive approach is sometimes more successful. It allows you more time to develop insight into what you really want to have in the space and how you will end up using it. Increasing the time that elapses in between choices allows you to separate things that you will enjoy for a lifetime from things that are of the moment and are soon to be discarded.

I allowed myself much more time to work on my study than our living room and the results have been much more genuine and pleasing in my opinion. Savouring every step of the process, and finding out what is really needed or important for those using the space with you.

It ends up being an incredibly personal process. I appreciate outside influence and insight but it works in an 'ah-ha' way, rather than feeling like I've been challenged.

 

[Hayward]

Wait.

Move the ficus orbs and put these up in their place.

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/erin-m-riley

 

[imatlas]

Foo, do you feel that this apartment is an accurate reflection of who you are? What do you expect me to know about you when I look at it?

I ask because sartorially you have gone through a brutally thorough and iterative process to arrive at your style, and as a result, you own it fully. It is an accurate reflection of who you want us to see. When I look at how you dress, I see someone who is meticulous in his concerns for fit and coordination, and who has a very personal twist on a traditionalist approach. In your own very understated way I'd say that you're actually quite flamboyant. (The One Shoe and The One Shirt are both examples of this).

When I look at your room, the most expressive objects are the money cat and the glass globes. They both tell a bit of a story - that you are proud of your family and background, and that you like plants and are capable of keeping them alive. Nothing else about the room tells me anything about you other than that you can assemble a visually appealing cluster of furniture that you have acquired. It is boring, anonymous and unoriginal. Even the globes have long since lost reverted from camp back to kitsch.

All of which is surprising to me, honestly. The very last adjectives that I would use to describe you sartorially are "boring, anonymous and unoriginal". As I said, in your own way I think you're kind of flashy. You make very deliberate choices that tastefully buck convention while staying within the rules. You've done none of that here. Your living room could be one of ten thousand on apartmenttherapy, or a spare room in some over decorated apartment from just about any time in the last 40 years.

If you had approached decorating in any way like you have approached your sartorial style, the last thing you would have done would be to order a bunch of balls from Flora Grubb, or a rug from some rug dealer's website that you yourself were mistrustful of, or going back to Cappellini for more broken furniture. No, you would have gathered your own collection of interesting objets from junk shops and high end antique stores and filled them with the most unique epiphytes and bromeliads, harvested and brought back from a canoe trip up the Amazon. You would have traveled to the Atlas Mountains and met with the young girl whose wedding blanket you would one day acquire. The coffee table would have been the work of years of collaboration with a cantankerous old furniture maker in Kyoto who only communicates in calligraphy. No one who looked at the room for a moment could ever doubt that anybody else lives in that room but the :foo:

In short,

 

[sugarbutch]

How idiosyncratic can his apartment be if he has to reach consensus with his spouse? I'm assuming Mrs. Foo has her own aesthetic proclivities which must be satisfied.

 

[dopey]

I am pretty sure my furniture says nothing about me. Maybe the books we have says something about our interests, although we don't have a coffee table so someone would have to look at the shelves. In other words, I am not sure what people are really expecting furniture to say. It is supposed to be functional and pleasant to look at and live with. It isn't a monologue.

 

[GreenFrog]

Can anyone please tell me what this thread's takeaway is?

I'm so confused.

In the mean time, take a look at the picture above my bed. Is this honest living (serious)?

 

[StephenHero]

When did BMW start making dreamcatchers?

 

[StephenHero]



Why are you such a *****? Actually, I stopped reading as soon as you mentioned sprezzatura and began discussing it seriously. Jeezus. Evidently, I am just too advanced for you.

How did I miss this bar of gold?

 

[imatlas]

Straight up GF? It's honestly tacky. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's also too small for the wall.

How idiosyncratic can his apartment be if he has to reach consensus with his spouse? I'm assuming Mrs. Foo has her own aesthetic proclivities which must be satisfied.

That's really up to Mr. and Mrs. Foo to decide, isn't it? I think that Foo is capable of expressing idiosyncracy in the most subtle of ways, if you didn't get that already from my comments.

I am pretty sure my furniture says nothing about me. Maybe the books we have says something about our interests, although we don't have a coffee table so someone would have to look at the shelves. In other words, I am not sure what people are really expecting furniture to say. It is supposed to be functional and pleasant to look at and live with. It isn't a monologue.

Maybe not for you, but it certainly is for Foo. How many threads does it really take to decorate Foo's apartment, after all? I mean, it's easy to say "it's just furniture, how much does it really say", but that seems totally antithetical to the intellectual approach that Foo claims to be taking. Of course, the fact is that he decorated it out of catalogs, showrooms and the internet in the space of less than three months, which is pretty much the opposite of carefully developing, refining and honing an aesthetic of home decor.

BTW I'm a total schlub when it comes to decorating. Most of what my apartment says about me is "this guy is a slob and a borderline hoarder", although I am getting better. However, my belongings say a lot about me, and I like it that way. I have books, maps and art that relate to my long time interest in the arctic, some of which are souvenirs brought back from trips there. We have a dhurrie on the floor in the kitchen that my wife bought from the weaver in a village in India. I wanted to put some air-plants in the kitchen window, but instead of the hated glass balls, I made my own display from a piece of driftwood I found on a beach trip we took with my sister's family. I bought my arm chair for $10 at a tag sale and had it reupholstered. Our favorite souvenir from any trip is work by a local artist, so we enjoy the art and we enjoy the memory of the trip every time that we see it. In short, there is nothing anonymous about our space, even if it isn't yet very functional and pleasant to look at!

 

[GreenFrog]

Oh well, at least I like it, and that's all that matters, right?

 

[imatlas]

Do chicks dig it? That's all that really matters.

 

[GreenFrog]

It gets a lot of compliments, that's for sure.

Now whether they really dig it, who knows?

I have another print of a beetle getting framed right now; can't wait to put it up!

Anyway, I know jack **** about aesthetics and design, so I only put up things that I like and admire.

 

[StephenHero]

Take a raincheck on those compliments.