Teach a Man to Design and His Home will Look Good for a Lifetime

Since Laura's been slammed this week, I decided to take the blog into my own hands. And by hands, I mean apartment. This is not to say that there isn't a small hope in the back of my design challenged mind that Laura will have mercy on me and help me design my apartment. (hint. hint.) 

I’m about to tell you what makes Laura different from other designers (this is my attempt to butter her up) and how, without even knowing it, through our blogging journey, she is slowly, but surely helping me figure out what went wrong in my mismatched apartment. (Me, being Lindley, Laura's blogging buddy).

I’ve lived in my place for almost 3 years now, and it's never looked right. I don’t even show people my space unless we’re really good friends and they already love me to pieces and think I’m really awesome. That way I have pretty good odds of distracting them with my wonderfulness and funniness, so they never notice that my apartment is a hot mess. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that all of my friends have noticed and just love me in spite of my poor design skills. Thanks to Laura, I’m realizing where I went wrong. Here are some problems I didn’t even realize I had until Laura stepped into my life with her nuggets of knowledge and design inspiration. Maybe it'll help you see how to apply her knowledge to your design challenges. 

Problem #1: What was in my head wasn’t happening in real life. It’s like when someone (like me) is a terrible drawer and they have something in their head and it comes out looking more like a jacked up stick figure than what they had envisioned. The truth is that before I met Laura, I was one of those poor souls who believed that since I’m a stylish person, I should be able do interior design. Another truth is that I knew my apartment looked horrible, but had convinced myself that I just hadn’t  given it all I had. Total and complete lie. I had actually tried really hard and ended up with something that looked more like a Mexican restaurant with your Grandmother’s furniture in it than an apartment.  

Would you like Jalapenos in your Queso? You can sit at my Grandmother''s old card table while you eat your Quesadilla.

Solution: (from our post on Design Tips) Design Tip# 36 Go to work and let someone who is great at doing houses help you – because it’s hard, not a reflection on you as a stylish person. 

Turns out that just because I shop at Free People and Anthropologie doesn’t mean I can design my home to look like it just popped off of the cover of Elle Decor. I need advice. From someone who actually knows what they're doing. 

Problem #2: The color of my living room. Since we’re being honest here, or at least I am, I’ll tell you the total truth. I broke up with this guy; as in I dumped him (gotta keep the record straight). Then, I decided that the only way to get over him was to spend an entire week repainting my living room, drinking way-to-much wine, and singing diva music to my dog at the top of my lungs. Yes, Celine Dion’s “All by Myself” was definitely on the playlist. If I’d known Laura then, she probably would’ve allowed my brief, week-long, self-destructive stint minus the part where I headed to Walmart and bought three giant tubs of paint in a shade that I chose because it was called “Blue Mood.” It might as well have been called “Emo Single Girl.” I thought I’d found my color soul mate until I painted the walls and realized it looked like the inside of Nuevo Loredo had just thrown up all over the room.  I also painted my bathroom this really obnoxious yellow color which ran even further with the Cinco De Mayo theme I didn’t realize I had going. 

See Blue Mood on the first column. It looks so nice. Didn't really look the same on my wall :-(

Solution: Design Tip # 2 "Always buy three samples of paint before you pick one, and test all of them on a white wall or poster board to get a true view of the color, a chip simply does not cut it."

I’d also like to add that it is never a good idea to buy paint based on the name of the color.   

Problem #3: My TV Stand. I bought my TV stand from IKEA. Something was wrong with it. Besides the fact that the tools they include are made for dwarfs. 

Dear IKEA...while I appreciate the fact that you thought to include the tools to put together this jigsaw puzzle that you call a piece of furniture, it seems that every thing I buy there is missing something. Namely, the elf with hands small enough to use this "screwdriver". (Photo includes the lighter to convey actual size).

Anyway, I couldn’t figure out why it didn’t look right. So, being such a naturally creative gal, I decided that the best course of action was to paint it. Not only paint it, but also, make it look “aged.” I went to Sam Flax, bought some paint, and some Crackle and spent an entire day painting it. Then, I spent an entire night literally watching paint dry, waiting for it to “Crackle.” But it didn't “Crackle.” At all. So, I did what anyone would do, I painted it again. This decision reminds me of the time I cut my doll's hair and when it was uneven, I just kept cutting until it was a hopeless disaster. I also added these stylish knobs that I got from World Market.

I guess it crackled a little on the left door.

Solution: You’re going to die when I tell you. When I was writing our "The Bones are Good" post, I had an epiphany, the TV stand was too big! “Don’t buy furniture that doesn’t fit.” After all of my painting, taking apart and rebuilding, it turned out that I had ruined a TV stand that didn’t need anything more than a space big enough to accommodate it. Whoops. 

Problem #4: My bookcase. I have a problem. Well several, but the one I’m talking about is my inability to give away gifts that people give me. I try to use them all even if they’re totally worthless. My friend Jocelyn once brought me an army green camouflage, faux velvet purse with faux black hair surrounding the word love written in cursive in sequins on the side. (Picture coming soon!) I used it as a make-up bag until it was so gross, I finally had to throw it away. The point is, no matter what the present, I’ll keep it, and a lot of the things I’ve received have ended up on this bookcase in my living room.

What it was going to look like in my head.

What it actually looks like. :-/

There are two solutions for this one. 

Solution 1: Design Tip #25 - If you really hate something, give it away to someone who loves it or at the very least can use it. Stop saving everything for your next house and living in clutter. You're not trying to turn up on the next episode of hoarders. Guess that means the Crush lunch box has got to go. 

Solution 2: Design Tip #36- (I'm saying it again because it's true.) Let someone who is great at doing houses help you!!! The top picture is from a home Laura designed. Just saying.

   

Problem #5: I didn't know what to do with all of my cool stuff. When my Grandparents passed away, I got dibs on so many things. And, it turns out, I'm actually pretty good at the concept of figuring out what things are actually awesome and what things aren't. It also turns out that I'm really bad at figuring out how to use them in an awesome way. I scored an old suit case, several vintage cameras, and a lot of classic records with cool covers. So, being very sneaky, I added them into our last post "One Man's Trash is Another Designer's Inspiration," so I could get some advice from Laura (she would've helped me anyways, but I liked this idea better).

Awesome old suitcase in my closet.

Read the post! The advice is phenomenal! Much better than the ideas I came with. Which were put all the stuff in my closet until I figured out something brilliant I could do with them. Pretty much reiterates the whole, let someone help you thing. 

I hope you've learned what sets Laura a part from other designers. Basically, if you’re more of a “teach a man to fish” kind of soul, she’s definitely your girl. Just through writing our posts I’ve had life changing light bulbs exploding above my head as far as figuring out what went wrong with my apartment. Like I said in the post, “The Story of Our Studio,” Laura will always leave you with a little design knowledge to carry in your pocket wherever you go. 

We love to help out. Please write us or comment on this blog if you have a design crisis of your own. You never know, we might just feature the answer in our next post. 

XX, LG and friends 

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Article by: Laura Green & Lindley Knight (@lindleyknight)