Division of Design

What can this possibly mean?

You’ve heard it before. Retold in so many ways. So why would I choose to bring up this age old adage again…because. Because it is probably is the single most important factor in your design life.

Design is in the Details deserves continuous mention.

Division of Design  means, if you divide all the small details that go into designing a home or a single room, all those small divided details become the whole design...’the essence of the entire design.’ 

THE NEW traditionalists. Cushion and seatback are upholstered with a scarlet saffron wool milled in one of the finest Scottish mills that remains today. Texture is added to the outer frame and welt with the use of a laser cut leather in Dolphin.  Exposed wood frame features a hand applied smoked grey finish on maple.

 

It’s not just the BIG things you see in a room, or in your life for that matter, that count. It’s all those little things that mean so much more than we give them credit for. One rose for no special occasion can mean more than 2 dozen on Valentine’s day.

It's not enough to finish the checklist, to hurriedly do the last three steps and declare victory.

Some have asked me, ‘Why do you obsess for hours over the perfect cabinet knob?  How on earth do you make a living doing that?’  I say, ‘How on earth can I not!’ 

THE NEW traditionalist: Side Table made from Maple sourced from New England and the Mid Atlantic. Shown in a hand applied Classic Glaze Chili with Black frame and Cerise Red upholstered drawer face with black nickel hardware.

 

As always, I continue to compare and reflect upon how facets of design are akin to our human existence. The world is full of billions of people…each with a division of details that make all of us unique in our own way. Even our bodies are not perfectly symmetrical; the left and right sides of the human body are not a mirror image of each feature, whether one ear is larger than the other, one brow raised slightly higher, or one leg is a quarter-inch longer than the other.

THE NEW traditionalist: Side Table made from Maple sourced from New England and the Mid Atlantic. Shown in ahand applied Worn Lacquer Silver and Onyx with Kelly Green Laser Cut Leatheraccent.

So why would I not approach interior design the same way? Each and every individual detail of the room or home is unique as its own feature. Yet when properly balanced by scale, color, and proportion, the design creates the perfect image as a greater part of the whole. Even the grout color works to emphasize the appearance of tile. How often I’ve heard; ‘We couldn’t have known how the wrong grout color would so dreadfully affect the result of our tile floor”.  

The Ovale Mosaic fromthe Musee collection features: Crema Marfil, Thassos, and ChinaBlack in handmade stone tessera.  Photo courtesy of: Artistic Tile

In fact, the last coat of polish and the unhurried delivery of worthwhile work is valued all out of proportion to the total amount of effort you put into the entire project. 

Creating the Ambra Collection. Truly an Art Form. Photo Courtesy of Artistic Tile

The details are not the details. They make the design.
                                                                                                        -Charles Eames

 Al fine!