One Room Challenge Week 2

Lovelies! I finished my space early, it’s this…. See? I tiled the studio, did some quick beams, stenciled them a little, added cool lights, a couple marble ladders, some old statues I took out of the attic, pulled a garden hose in and… now it’s done!

Not buying it? Oh. Is it because it’s the pool at the actual Hearst Castle? Oh ok. It is, you’re right! My studio space isn’t done, but I have entered an extremely important phase.

A room that is absolutely NOT my Interior Design Studio but the gorgeous pool at Hearst castle

I am in a planning phase.

I love this quote from Abraham Lincoln, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

I probably won’t, but I will spend 2 thinking about and researching the best way to sharpen an axe (which may actually be finding the best axe sharpener around) and another 2 sharpening (or waiting for the sharpening) and THEN it’s time for trees. Or maybe just a little more planning.

In planning phases spaces and ideas aren’t always evident or even linear. It’s Red Flag Weather here, starting tomorrow. The Santa Ana Winds are coming and I haven’t seen those since the #woolseyfire last year. If the power company decides to turn the power grid off it’ll take up to 5 days to get it back, that’s fairly major.

See how it’s non-linear in this phase? Not to worry it becomes VERY focused.

We were talking about my #oneroomchallenge participation with media partner @betterhomesandgardens #bhgorc, remember?

BUT we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the fire here. Our home survived the fire with just the losses of the yard, the dock, the boat and the bedroom wall and some roof. But we had devastating community losses and I took 6 months off from design work to pitch in with community service. It’s time to be back to design full time now, but the fire changed my perspective about some things, and those things relate to design and there’s just no getting around it. It’s all woven together.

At first after the fire I thought, “Why do we need things? ALL extraneous things must go!” and I was on a full Marie Kondo minimalist kick, and then I suddenly thought “If we ever get evacuated again I’m bringing both cars and also making trips in and out with stuff, ALL our stuff” and I happen to know that BOTH of those approaches are correct.

the Woolsey Fire raging behind us as we pull over for an evacuation doggie pee break Nov 9th, 2018.

The zen of allowing things to be just things was with me for a while, I loved it- I felt a sorta proud of it. I threw away random samples and materials in the studio, I sold rare books, I donated two pick up trucks worth of Interior Design related goods and literature.

But the other way came roaring back just days ago. Our things have meaning, things hold memories, things could perhaps provide comfort if the shell of the home was lost. A little familiarity. Things matter to me. I want our things, I want the business to have the right things around. I wish those who had lost things they loved had not lost those things. And we’re back to ranking things again.

That’s Dallas Rains, the most famous weatherman. It’s an unflattering still of the news tonight- he looks like a movie star and seems nice- but look at all that Red Flag warning.

Anyway, here it comes. The weather that allows the kind of fire that no one can stop. In an outrageous size. The weather that brought the Tubbs fire roaring into Santa Rosa, taking the house of an author who caused me to understand what was happening to us 12 hours before fire reached my community. Bill Fies graphic novel about his fire, and the subsequent loss of his home instructed a lot of us in the Woolsey fire. His experience hits it’s 2nd anniversary this week, ours hit’s our 1st anniversary next month.

What I’m thinking about now is if I do the gallery wall of my dreams at the studio, some of the art will be so high I won’t actually be able to get it down readily, to evacuate. And some of the lights will be so coiled I don’t know what I’d do if they got bought (I wouldn’t consider them for evacuation, sorry lights). Hmmm….. It’s a brand new set of criteria, evacuation convenience, and it exhausts me to plan for. Some of the art isn’t fine, but I just love it- there’s a pair of portraits of a couple below, some mid century pieces by a very prolific man from Stockton who hasn’t reached value yet. But I think it has something about it, and it’s framed wrong.

I did frame some art this week in very plain frames. I wrapped my head around my inventory of mid century art, currently. I made a couple sales and have a loan going so that changed some of my initial plans.

And I did look at Pinterest and pinned bathrooms thoughts. Too bad I’m not doing a bathroom!

I did venture out into the world and looked at stuff and things and new places (like fancy malls, and store windows) and I did stare at the space from several different angles. Believe it or not, in my process, those are big acts of planning that will add up to something, but I am not sure what. Next week will be inspiration central as I attend @highpointmarket #HPMKT the largest home furnishings show in the US, so stay tuned for finds from that show.

I don’t know what it all means, yet. That’s planning. I do know it’ll have these,