Finding Your House Beautiful

Later, my thoughts turned to paper and I drew floorplans. My dad brought home sheets of 11×17 scrap paper from work, and again, I was content for hours. I got an Architectural Digest subscription for Christmas. Although the content in its pages felt somehow stuffy and out of my league, I knew I loved design and architecture. I knew it was powerful for me.

But I did not emerge from high school confident and ready to take on the world. Quite the opposite. I was pretty lost. The happy families I named to live in the homes I created did not exactly match my reality. And so my journey begins with the not-so-shiny-moments of my college years. I lasted three months in an architecture program.  I transferred schools three times. I was undisciplined, did a lot of dumb things, and wasted a lot of opportunity. Still, I loved design, and struggled my way into an interior design program.

Because it’s not always what you know, but who you know, I eventually got an internship at a high end residential design firm. It was mostly about big houses and big money. While it was awe-inspiring, and I saw architecture and homes like I had never seen before, it gave me an elitist impression of the design world that didn’t sit well with me. How could I focus so much attention on hand-painted lamps and really expensive sofas when so many people don’t even have homes? (a sign of an Enneagram 4). As much as I loved being surrounded by beauty- by great design- until it made more sense to me, it wasn’t going to work. There was so much more in the world that seemed pressing and important. And ways to make a better living than a measly beginning designer salary. Maybe design was my gift, but it sure didn’t seem like a necessary one.

“I took a year off to see how the world works, and then I felt ready”

Italian Chef

Or maybe 25 years. And it really wasn’t “taking off”, but it was definitely seeing how the world works.I didn’t think design or beauty mattered. That it is important enough. Turns out, it is.

Designer David Trubridge, in his search for the meaning of beauty, found beauty’s origin to be “nostalgia for something we knew we’d lost…a nostalgia for a remembered intense experience, so ingrained in your brain, and its loss created such a sense of trauma that we live out our lives in search of it.” 

American conservationist Kristine Tompkins says that “something valuable can be best understood not by its presence, but by its absence”.

If this is true, what’s our nostalgia for? What is this remembered intense experience so ingrained in our brain? Something we know we had, and lost? What is absent, and so valuable that we live out our lives in search of?

And what on earth does this have to do with interior design, with your house beautiful?

Everything.

Because that is exactly what we are in search of. A beautiful environment. A nest. Home.

And what’s the most traumatic loss humans have ever experienced?

That would be the loss of the Garden of Eden; the perfect environment, rich with intense experience, rich with color, form, shape, rhythm, line, texture, light. And balance.

A comfortable place for family, work, and rest. A peaceful place for us to be nurtured and inspired. A vibrant place for celebration. One on one communion with God. No loss, no illness, no unsatisfied longing.

Our craving in life is simple; it’s for that perfect place we were originally intended to inhabit.

It’s what we seek to reproduce in our public places and in our homes: design elements and principles that are a gift of nature, God’s creation, a part of the original plan. The point of them is our fundamental need to incorporate them into our daily lives for our well-being. They’re the tools we use to express who we are and what we love through the environments we create.

Ingrid Fetell Lee, a designer specializing in “the aesthetics of joy” studies the relationship between our environment and our emotions.  Her research includes the neuroscience of shape; how angular shapes give us a sense of danger (think jagged cliffs and the horns of a bull), how round shapes bring calm, ease and laughter (think soft, fluffy pillows, balloons, bubbles), and how in evolutionary science, color is linked to signs of life and energy, and repetition is linked to a sense of abundance; “..and abundance meant survival while scarcity was dangerous”.

Wherever you stand on the creation map, it’s pretty clear that divine understanding, scientific fact, and scientific theory all point the way to the importance of beauty in our lives. The strong link between our surroundings and our mental well-being is evident. When we do daily life without beauty, we feel lack and lose our vitality.

So yes, Virginia. Beauty does matter.

“Beauty is life saving…Beauty quickens. It adrenalizes. It makes the heart beat faster. It makes life more vivid, animated, living, worth living.”

-On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry

“That’s it- beauty rescues. It rescues because it is merciful, comforting. It heals, restores, revives, renews. This is why…we sit in the garden, visit museums, and stare at the sea…Fill your world with beauty”

-Get Your Life Back, John Eldredge.

And author Janet Hagberg defines beauty as “a thin place where the eternal intersects with our world.” Pretty succinct.

Isn’t this precisely why we smile? Feel joy? Completeness? Beauty speaks to your spirit and your soul. It’s not a luxury. It’s a source of vitality.

“As we reflect on satisfying our hunger, thirst and longing with a view to eternity, it becomes clear that God’s intention isn’t for us to disregard earthly pleasures. The things that bring us joy and satisfaction in our everyday lives are gifts from the Lord- given to enjoy, of course, but also to serve as important reminders of the satisfaction He promises.”          

Dr. Charles Stanley

Now that I’ve seen how the world works, I know beauty matters. I know it’s origin, and its gift. It matters to me. And it matters to you. It’s a universal craving and need. It’s for everyone and every budget. It’s for every style and taste. You have a unique design sweet spot. It’s worth seeking and honoring.

You know what I think is beautiful? A really great balanced room. The right lighting. The pop of color in a great pillow in just the right place. These all give me comfort, a sense of abundance and a sense of well-being. But so do my daughters’ colorful drawings, a small inexpensive plant on the counter, a bulletin board of colorful photos and magazine picture cut outs, the forty year old patchwork quilt my grandmother made.

What do you love in your environment? What elements of beauty bring you comfort? Joy? Inspire you? Renew you? Pay attention to that- it’s within reach. It’s not about spending money you may or may not have to follow the latest trend that may or may not speak to you. It is about creating your home using the gift of design elements in a way that nurtures you and enriches your life. Find your design sweet-spot and build on that. From wherever you are. Create your house beautiful.

If you want to discover more about what speaks to you in your space, here’s your practical tool. Enjoy!