...because home doesn't happen overnight.

unusual art

I recently came across a home filled with bold art and unusual décor. The living room features a two-story art installation made of rubber masks. The fireplace surround is tiled with military dog tags and is reminiscent of a mirrored disco ball. A photograph of stacked bacon is on display in the dining area. (I initially thought it was an abstract oil painting.) And a series of ketchup “portraits” hang in a stairwell.

The homeowner describes his unique art collection as the yang to his career as an attorney.

“I work in a courtroom with judges and rules, where the thinking can be fairly constricted. Talking and dealing with people who function on a completely different level is a creative outlet for me.” – Andrew Weinstein, homeowner

It made me wonder if other people use their home’s décor as a way of balancing out their day jobs. It’s not really something I’ve thought about before. I’m reminded of designers and artists who work with color and patterns all day but prefer to keep their home’s palette and vibe relatively quiet as a relief from their work’s visual stimulation. I also think about makers like Amy Butler, Ariele Alasko and Maryanne Moodie who incorporate their work into their décor. Of course, there are those who seem to have no boundaries between work and home. Jonathan Adler and Kelly Wearstler come to mind. Looking back to when I was working as a pharmacist, I did feel stifled creatively at work. Maybe that’s why I turned to decorating on my days off.

I’d love to know if / how your job affects your décor. Are you a teacher or daycare provider who craves an orderly retreat after working with messy kids all day? Is your job very technical in nature? Does it inspire a more creative home space or does the precision follow you home? I know a woman who cleans houses for a living but lets her own home go because cleaning up feels too much like her job.

art filled home

You can read more about the aforementioned art-filled home here. Another interesting topic that caught my attention in the article was the idea of creating a home not based on style but focusing instead on how you live. Anyway, just some interesting thoughts to get your wheels turning on a Monday. Where did the weekend go?!

images: Richard Powers for Dwell

23 Comments

29.September.2014

Very interesting topic! I have always loved interior design and have used it as a creative outlet since I was a kid. About 9 months ago I transitioned from working part time in a creative field (web/graphic design) to being a full time creative. At first I felt a surge of creativity and was working on all sorts of home projects every day after work. Lately I’ve been feeling stuck in a rut and have pretty much halted any projects I have going on at home. There are definitely days that I feel like I wake up with creative energy but a lot of times it is drained by the time I get home from work.

Interested to see what other people have to say!

29.September.2014

Love this question. I work in a gorgeous glass tower on an open communal floor. All around me are views of Manhattan skyline and plenty of sunlight. It’s fantastic. However, when I go home, I love how cozy and private my apartment feels. I need walls, warm lighting and plenty of fabric at home. My workspace is fabulous, but it’s a little exhausting to be open to the world at all times.

29.September.2014

Absolutely! I leave the rigid, stressful day behind, and make sure my home reflects the moods I want to surround myself with. Decorating my home is a passion, and it allows me to fill my creativity in a positive natural way. Work does not stimulate me the same way. While I infuse my personality into my workspace at the office, it is often the few items of color and design that help remind me of who I am in that gray, structured world.

Love the topic!

29.September.2014

First, I just wanted to say that I’ve just discovered your blog and I absolutely love what you’re doing. Keep up the good work!

Now, onto your question – I just went back to work after a year of maternity leave. I found that spending the year at home made me evaluate the space differently (especially the long hours spent inside during the Canadian winter!). At times my house drove me CRAZY, but it really inspired me to tackle the things that weren’t working. Over the course of the year, I transformed our home from a very adult space into a happy, comfortable mix that suits both toddlers and grownups. Now that I’m (reluctantly) back at work, I love coming home at the end of the day and soaking up some family time in our happy home!

29.September.2014

Like your homeowner above, I’m a lawyer. But I balance all my reading/writing/talking (aka keeping my butt in an office chair all day) with working with my hands at home. I really enjoy my day job and find it rewarding to help others, but there isn’t much of a physical accomplishment to appreciate at the end of it. So I love creating a lot of my own projects at home so I can use creativity and power tools to improve/decorate our home as a balance to desk job.
Looking forward to hearing what others say!

29.September.2014

That’s very interesting to think about! I have a job in the web sphere so everything at work is very forward thinking and cutting edge. At home, I tend to favor antiques or hand-me-downs to decorate with, so maybe you’re really onto something!

29.September.2014

I run an inhome daycare on the main floor of our home. As a result, it is filled with bright colors in way of toys and storage. There is often lots of messes, etc. In turn, our lower level, where my family spend most of its time is very neutral and orderly. I feel I need it to be tidy at all times, because it provides the orderliness that my mind craves.

29.September.2014

I totally agree! I work as a photo retoucher and so I spend my days looking at colorful images and matching shades and patterns. I’ve always said that my line of work exposes me to so much color and pattern that I need a neutral environment at home. My apartments & houses have all been painted white and my furniture usually falls somewhere between white & black. The colors of my living spaces come from the art on the walls.

29.September.2014

I’m firmly in the designer-who-needs-neutrality-at-home camp. I love bold color in our work (graphic design and web design), but I prefer a very quiet, soothing color palette at home.

There are other ways to add style besides bold color. We have a bunch of quirky items that add warmth and graphic interest — a large, stone mortar and pestle, an antique round Chinese window, wood carvings from Tanzania and Brazil, textiles from Mexico… all with neutral furniture. Neutral is a great background for interesting art and objects.

29.September.2014

Hmmm… Haven’t had to think about this before! When I first moved in to my home I thought it would be a “starter” home and I’d be moving out in just a year or two. Well, life happened, and 4 years in to it I decided I better start personalizing it! I was so afraid to change anything previously. By day, I am a science/logic/problem solving person, and it has taken me a VERY long time to realize that I’m a creative person! (I still don’t own that description) Life at work is organized, and I like to have things in their home. KNOW it will be there when I reach for it…. but my house is not really that way. It’s almost the opposite? My Job ISN’T how my home is. It’s a creative space, with projects started in many different places, constantly changing, objects moving…. organized chaos I suppose??

M
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29.September.2014

Decorating my home (especially picking out the art) is definitely a creative outlet that balances out what I do for a living. I’m a tax analyst in a conserative corporate environment, so I work with numbers all day (tax returns, forecasts, etc) and sit in a cubicle. I love the challenges in my job, it’s very technical and the decor at the office is a little drab. I love coming home to my colorful flowers in the front yard and art pieces inside that spark my imagination and creativity. I’m actually planning to take up photography as a hobby as a creative outlet when the major decorating at my house slows down.

29.September.2014

i am a kindergarten teacher, and I absolutely despise the primary colors! I think this is because I am around them so much during the day. There are also so many “things” as well as visual stimulation in our classrooms, that I tend to like my home VERY plain and minimal. It’s as if I need a break from all of the stimulation!

Oh, my job definitely affects my decor… Like, for real. Big time. :) I’m an oncology dietitian, thus have very little opportunity for creativity at work. I’ve always loved anything artistic and not having that creative outlet really affected me. Playing around with DIY and decor on my off-hours has been so ridiculously therapeutic… and starting a blog really was the icing on the cake. I know that if I had a job requiring more creativity, I wouldn’t work nearly as hard on our home and decor, so it’s definitely a blessing in disguise as far as I’m concerned.

29.September.2014

You’re spot-on. My good friend is a prop stylist, primarily for retail print advertising (Neiman Marcus, Dillard’s, Pier1, JCPenney, etc.) and his home couldn’t be more streamlined, neutral and minimalist. After a long day of arranging and styling per the clients’ needs and art direction, he prefers to soothe his senses with his simple surroundings. However, another stylist friend, she does some prop though more fashion, infuses her home with more stylized personality that meshes we’ll with her renovated MC ranch.

29.September.2014

I absolutely think my day job influences my style at home – sometimes detrimentally, to be honest. I’m a graphic designer + blogger, constantly poring through magazines, blogs, books… anything to become/remain inspired. I’m constantly shaping my home in a way that reflects my current style, whether it’s a color palette, graphic pattern, or texture. Sometimes I wish I could just turn the “graphic designer” brain off and just let my surroundings be, but I haven’t learned to master that just yet. Hopefully I can someday!

29.September.2014

I’m not a teacher, but I love schoolhouse decor — old kid sized desks, schoolhouse clocks, cubbies, lockers, wall hooks for backpacks and jackets, big rulers. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom of 3? I don’t know, I think I just love the look. Our decor looks nothing like a modern classroom though. My son is learning cursive right now, so I just printed and framed a page of the alphabet in cursive. The one thing I don’t have, despite it’s popularity, is a blackboard. Chalkboards and Styrofoam give me the eebs!

30.September.2014

I can’t even read the work “chalkboard” without wincing. I immediately think of fingernails on the board. Ahhhhh!

30.September.2014

We live abroad most of the time so our house is filled with reminders of home. You walk in the door, and you know where we’re from!

30.September.2014

I think you’re on to something here. I’m an interactive designer at work and I pour my creativity into my work, just to have clients or brand guidelines pull me back. I love working on my home because it allows me to finally express myself freely. I use a lot of quirky fun elements in my house. No one gets to tell me what I need to change, or if they don’t like something. It’s something all my own. Expressing myself at home helps me come to work and do it all over again.

30.September.2014

Melora – that’s exactly how I feel! At work I’m a Mathematician, and very orderly. My home has tons of colour and mess and is what my mother describes as “lived in”. We have no white walls or empty surfaces….

01.October.2014

Absolutely. I have had a lot of comments on how “neutral” (polite way of saying boring?) my choices were for our recent home reno. I work in a hospital environment where it can be a full work day of competing stimuli – noise, visual clutter, watching 4 different computer monitors and reading 3 different documents at once while talking to 4 different people. When I get home I want CALM. All the walls are painted the same colour of grey. My husband keeps saying that we need to incorporate more colour (and I do usually like adding some creative DIY touches) but we’ve only been in for 4 months and I’m still enjoying the empty, quiet, space… we have a room I haven’t bothered to furnish yet, and I’ve been putting off hanging an art so I can enjoy the bare walls (except in our son’s room, which I wanted to make homey for him).

Im all about decorating my house according to how we live. I think its essential. Ive heard many comments (mainly from friends and family) on a particular design choice Ive made that they think wasn’t what they would choose. I simply and kindly say, well we don’t live the same way you do and this make sense for our family. I could totally see how someone who works in a corporate, structured rules-based environment would want complete creative freedom and expression at home. It probably creates a great lifestyle balance for them. Thanks for sharing Dana

10.October.2014

Love following your website/blog! And you’ve asked a great question. For me (us), our home is strong in (our) personal tastes – what we like and love. And as much as is possible, everything in our home has a home. We try to avoid piles of anything, anywhere, so there is a sense of order and flow to our place. Clutter detracts from the sense of peace our home provides. And this emphasis on lack of clutter (which for me leads to confusion!) is because sometimes the things that happen in life produce chaos. We can’t always control what life throws at us and there is enough confusion and adjusting that happens because of the more negative events. But inside the walls of our home, we can create an oasis of sorts. So yes, the uncontrolled events in life very much affect how we choose to live inside our home, where I can control some things. A sense of order (minus OCD) can bring a calm of sorts to life. At least, this works for us!