“The best rooms have something to say about the people who live in them.” – David Hicks

“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” – Rachel Zoe

A few days ago I posted some of what has been going on inside our house here on Saint Patrick Street, specifically hanging pictures as we inch closer to being “finished” enough to receive guests.

A couple of people have asked about the process, and what kind of math is involved in making a “feature wall” work.

Well, while my reference to a “slide-rule” may have involved a little hyperbole, the complexity of making this add up and translate into an attractive wall is not. So here is a little bit of insight into what it takes to do something other than the typical “hang a picture (usually too high) then move on.”

First, Rebekah selects a collection of pictures according to a theme or a style that will give the wall some sense of unity.

Then she lays out all the paintings on the floor (see photo, above) making sure to have some kind of a grid in the background (the geometric patterns on this particular rug help a lot).

She will let the arrangement sit for a while, typically resulting in several recalculations as she fine-tunes adjustments over time.

Next, we take a photograph of the grouping to use for reference when we begin to hang the artwork on the wall.

After that I measure distances between the pictures, distances between centers, distances in relation to other features and jot it all down in a notebook.

Finally, and while Rebekah coaches me from the other end of the room, I begin to hang the art, remeasuring constantly, using a level, and hoping against hope there will be no critical changes midstream!

And, Voilà, there it is. So we move on to the next project.

All this is to say, as decorator Billy Baldwin wrote, “Be faithful to your own taste, because nothing you really like is ever out of style.”

Important…

Here is a quick story: One summer Rebekah and I worked with a church as part of her graduate degree in ministry. We were dinner guests with two families on successive nights – the homes were in the same neighborhood.

One couple had recently occupied their house and decided to start everything from scratch. “We looked at showrooms and catalogues and replicated them in our home,” they explained. “The furniture, the placement, the table-lamps, the home accents, the art books on the coffee-tables, even the pictures on the wall.”

The home was beautiful, yes, like a hotel lobby is beautiful. But it felt like something important was missing.

The next evening we visited with a family who occupied a rambling 1920’s house featuring old wood floors, quirky features and surprises around every corner. The place was loaded with items they had picked up around the world, original art, hundreds of books that had actually been read, random family photos in odd places and more.

They had stories to go with everything and we felt that we got to know the family just by wandering through the space together.

The first house was antiseptic; the second was a warm embrace.

That is our aim. We want our home to embrace anyone who visits. We want this house to tell our story – DEREK