Your home: style or just things?

Picking up and moving to Dubai was overwhelming to say the least. We had just gotten married on 7.7.07 in RI (a lovely and simple wedding, I must say) and we were living in one of our favorites apartments in Boston to date. Beacon Street. Washington Square. Brookline. I love Brookline.

I had lived in one apartment before Giuseppe and I moved in together, in Washington Square as well, and I wouldn't say that was a great apartment - nor was it terrible. As many people who have lived in Boston before know, character is something you can come by quite often, as many of the residential buildings and homes are old...thus have history, and charm. And character. This had character. Peeling fabric wallpaper. Smelly stairwell with old sea foam green walls. Worn out wood floors (but wood, nonetheless). Decorative mouldings around just about everything. A balcony railing that you dare not lean on - or even sneeze near. And a thick-pile floral rug in the dining room that was most likely there for the life of the 3-family home owned by the lovely Polish landlords, Hymen & Faya.

Giuseppe was not crazy about the place when we first started dating (I had lived there for 1.5 years already), but I found many aspects about it very charming. The walk-through pantry with shelves up to the 10' ceilings. The bowed wall in the living room. The pink and green floral stencil on my bedroom walls (well, not really). And most of all, the "things" that I had. I can say in all honesty, that, at that time, at the ripe old age of 24, I had things. No style. No rhyme or reason, just things. I tried to have style - organizing things in a certain way, hanging family pictures with Buddha postcards from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, always purposefully not matching things. Fresh flowers in weird vases. And IKEA, oh yes, IKEA. Having a desk and some tables from IKEA to provide the base for it all. They sell style, right?
Now that I think about it, maybe that, those things, were my style.

Then we moved to Chestnut Hill. Not far from the city, quiet, and did I mention new? Ah, new. The kitchen, new. Bathroom, new. Hardwood floors? Yup, new. Charm. None. Character. None. It was like a blank white (pale yellow) canvas. Just a simple crown moulding to add a touch of sophistication. At the time I craved this. Clean. New. Simple. Charmless. Devoid of character and smell. I felt like I could create "interior art" in a sense, in this space. I didn't have to compete or work with the colors that already existed...or the textures, or fabric walls. This was the first time I think that I actually felt that I was creating some kind of style in our home. We still had some things we had to work with: the old couch my parents gave us (we were students, so money wasn't flying from the sky, if you know what I mean, but we bought a new caramel-colored cover which gave it new life), my grandparents finished oak round coffee table (oak is not my thing, but this is actually all hard-wood and good quality), an orange chair from Urban Outfitters, and my old bed on just a metal frame, among ther various small items, adornments, quirky collectibles, etc. We once again attacked IKEA for their LACK tables, EXPEDIT bookcase, paper lanterns and various other house items, as well as The Container Store for some stainless steel pieces and cutting board/wine stand. But we splurged on one thing that really made a statement, and moreover began to describe who we were and what our taste was...what our style was. We bought a large 6-8 person bamboo & espresso stained hard wood dining table. It is beautiful, still, as it sits in the basement at my folks house (we coudn't exactly pack it for Dubai), with square bamboo insets. It actually has character, and not the kind that felt old. It is modern and clean and simple, but us.

Although we couldn't paint anything in Chestnut Hill, since it was all new, I still felt as though I had actually created a sense of style, not just things lying around in arrangements, things that had little meaning, things I may have been holding on to because I was afraid of the blank space it would leave. But, upon leaving for Arlington, we ended up renting an apartment that we could paint, which was really nice for us. Now, given that the style of the house, again, old and with character, was not exactly in line with our mnimalist-simple-clean-modern ideals, we did choose paint colors that complimented what we had and the house...reds, greens, yellows, capuccino, white. Clean, a little traditional, but worked very well for us. And again, moving in there allowed for my style to progress, beginning to compliment furniture with vintage glass jars filled with single blooms, refreshing and chic candles, bamboo stalks just about everywhere in different-sized rectangular glass vases, bedding in aqua & green, or purple & red, the living room in pinks, oranges and reds, with accents of just about every other color from the incense holders, to glass pieces to book bindings (we have an incredible collection of art, architecture, design, etc. books and magazines), the dining room in white, browns and greens, the kitchen in greens and white. It was developing. For me, it was becoming a home with some style. Our style. Our choices, although still not all perfect and ideal, within boundaries that still worked for us...until....

Finally, we moved back to Brookline. Ahhh, Brookline. I just love Brookline. Did I mention that already? The environment there lends itself to an extension of the city-life. It is never too quiet, but never so loud you can't hear yourself think. It is filled with green spaces, but urban in context, filled with bistros, cafes and cool boutiques all along Beacon & Harvard Streets. The people are softer, there are apparent family-filled neighborhoods and on the Green Line C-train, you get picked up before everyone else in the city, ensuring a seat 99.9% of the time. Score!
Our apartment was right on Beacon Street, facing rear though. Quiet. Sunny. Great for our (many, many) plants. Not too big, and when we first saw it, it was a complete disaster - a college-girls-gone-wild disaster. 10' ceilings with hardwood in the rooms, white VCT lining the hall, and pink, black and white tiles in the bath. A small balcony in the rear. Bowed walls in the living room. Lots of closets. New kitchen. And after the maintenance crew came to paint everything from floor to ceiling in pure white, it truly was the blank white canvas on which we could create our design.

I have a facination with the returned paint in paint stores, it always seems to offer something, something that works. Typically neutrals, but I guess I got lucky this time around. The entry was decorated in purples. Our bedroom turned into a turquiose oasis, with one bright wall and white surrounding walls, black and white leaf-graphic bedding, bamboo area rug, and wall shelving. Our kitchen became sunshine yellow with IKEA downlights under the cabinets, a self-built dark-stained wooden breakfast bar on stainless brackets, stainless cutting board stand from The Container store and accent colors in orange. The living room became an espresso-orange-bright pink combo with stainless and dark-wood track shelving, still incorporating the old oak coffee table. Somehow it worked, vintage and modern, old and new. It looked perfect and even chic in that room. Out bath stayed pink, black and white - obviously - with only white accents and a black & white figure-ground shower curtain. The office was green and white, with only dark work desks and track shelving. And some red accents crept in that space - a'la Arlington.

We were married on 7.7.07, so this was our apartment into which we moved all of our wedding gifts - gorgeous plates, vases, bowls, decorative items, etc. But even without it all, just with our green plants accenting each and every room, with our mis-matched yet strategically placed items, our family photos and art work, even with just those things that we had - our extremely impressive and constantly growing magazine and book collection, etc. That was enough. That allowed us to stand there and say this was our style. Eclectic and clean. Simple and modern. Comfortable and youthful. You could really feel us and see us in this place. The colors, the patterns, the items, the smells. Giuseppe always says this was his favorite apartment we lived in.

Now we live here in Dubai. A brand new aparment with granite and stainless fit-outs just about everywhere, mahogany wood, crisp, white 12x12 floor tiles, 1x1 mosaic tiles in all the baths...and once again, we are here creating an interior style that works for this place. It feels very 'West Elm-esque'. It is clean. Modern. Crisp. Elegant and chic. It has the feeling of a lounge with tall ceilings and crisp, white tree-printed curtains hanging from ceiling to floor on black rods, chocolate brown chaise sofa, white and neutral area rugs, and expresso stained hard wood tables and cube-shelving from Marina. The overall feeling is fresh. White is the primary color with accents of burnt orange, celedon green, fuschia, aqua, red. Yet you cannot escape the Arabian feeling that envelops it. The railings on our huge balcony looking out to the Burj Dubai, the detail above the sliding glass doors, the view out our windows to the neighboring Arabian-style buildings, and the attention to detail. This is a thing of Dubai, of the UAE.

At this point in my designing life, I feel that I can say two things: first is that style is what you make it. Just because it hasn't been published in a magazine doesn't mean it is not style. And second is that style grows just as we grow. We change and progress and morph, and so do our choices and likes and dislikes. And in the end, that is how we express ourselves. At any given moment, at any age, in any place, our style - be it fashion, interiors, furniture, hair - is how we express who we are now. It is an expression of where we have been. What we have learned. Our mistakes. And we take with us everything that remains a part of us, and we use it to help us leap and grow into the next phase.

I can confidently say that I am thrilled for our next phase of style. As architects and designers, and now, world travellers (wishful thinking), I can only see our style, as well as ourselves, progressing into better and more sure expressions of where we are right now. Modern and eclectic collections from our travels mixed with vintage pieces from our grandparents. I hope one day to be able to see a style story like that evolve in our home...

d:)