Vol. 3: The only design hack you need

My grandmother is famous for this particular design hack.

Whatever you do, make sure you can take a throw pillow from one of the rooms in your house and be able to use it in any of your other rooms.  

What she means is your design, color scheme, and overall aesthetic are cohesive. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked into houses and tried to play the “pillow game” – mentally, of course. I’m not walking around my neighbor’s house with a throw pillow checking to see if it works in all her rooms.

But it is the design advice I always think about. It is far more overarching than the – “always arrange things in odd numbers” or “never light candles on your dining room table in the daylight” rule.

Being able to carry a throw pillow from one room to any other room with a seamless, almost “it’s always been this way” coordination is the crème-de-la-crème of design hacks.

I swear by it.

It is how I decorated The Mackreth. I had one centralizing theme – saturated color – and one major design element – the mural wallpaper. Every color in the house can be found in the wallpaper. The colors are in the Noir Room, the three bedrooms upstairs, and most definitely the Lady Sitting Room (LSR). Taking my grandmother’s design hack a step further, the furniture in every room can be blended, rearranged, or placed in front of the mural wallpaper.

And that was the intention.

I designed The Mackreth so the dining room table could move to the LSR and the whole seating arrangement in the LSR could move to the dining room to create more seating options in the house’s largest room. Those same chairs could go into the Noir Room for additional seating for a PowerPoint presentation on the television. The chairs from The Lounge can be added to the dining room or Noir Room seating. Furniture is fluid and can be organized by you.

When the design is consistent and centralized, you can rearrange virtually anything, and it works. Why does it work, you may ask.

It works because the cohesive, consistent, and design theme allows for bold, highly saturated colors to feel and act as neutrals. You’re not blending “worlds” that don’t work. You’re not using color like a crayon box, and you’re allowing space for your mind to breathe. Design order creates harmony, and when there’s harmony, a space has the warmth and comfort of home.

See what I mean?