HomeDesign Rules: Listen to the Children
21. Dec, 2009 
4 Comments
Your house is fantastic. You look fantastic. What have you done to your hair . . . because it’s fantastic. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about this business, it’s that everybody’s telling everybody how fantastic everything looks. How can so many things be so fantastic? Exactly. That’s why kids can be so refreshing – sometimes they mean what they say, and they have definite ideas about design – fantastic or otherwise. My cousin Jamie’s offspring, Amalie, 10 and Jannik, 8, are good examples. When I hosted Thanksgiving a couple years ago, Amalie pointed at the blue abstract oil painting I’d hung above the dining room buffet.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s supposed to be art.”
“But what is it?” she asked again to the delight of my assembled family.
But when they visited again recently, they surprised me by seriously digging my pad (and getting chatty about it). Naturally my Superman statues and “crystal” skull were big hits with the little ones, but they also noticed and appreciated the changes I’d made to the bedrooms, the new zig zag rug in the living room and the marble eggs I’d placed in a black lacquer bowl on a white marble table in my living room. An art piece, they pose the question; what came first, the marble chicken or the marble egg, and I believe the kids pondered that question on some level. Plus, they’re marble eggs, and let’s face it, marble eggs are cool (much cooler than marble chickens).
Amalie told me she wants to be an interior designer, so perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that despite all my goofy kid accessories, she had the most viscerally positive reaction to the sun porch, which I’d completely rearranged (or reimagined if you take your words with a bit more flair) since her last visit. In fact, she said her favorite piece in the entire house was the tall, black swan lamp I bought from Andrew Hollingsworth and which I centered on the desk in the sun porch she loved so much. Atta girl.
I have no doubt that in a few years, Amalie and Jannik are going to be saying how fantastic everything is (or whatever the equivalent word de rigeur), and I’ll be telling them how fantastic they are and vice versa (of course), and everything will be truly fantastic. But I’m going to miss the feeling I had when they were running around my house and jumping up and down with excitement and otherwise calling it like they see it.
Thanks for helping me with my post kids. You are coming along quite nicely.
You, dear sir, are crazy.
How sweet! I love family stories. Maybe Amalie gets her design chops from you.
thanks alot everyone!!!! amalie P.S. Peace
Hi, Tate! Thanks for including your cousin’s children in your post. Just like in the story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” kids are not afraid to call it as they see it. Please encourage Amalie with gifts of colored pencils, art paper, origami sets, and maybe even a tour of some of the cool design shops you write about on future visits. Let her explore and start to focus her vision now and she will thank you for it immensely in the future.