ORCHESTRATING FLOW AS A INTERIOR CREATIVE

Discovering how a well-designed space needs to flow naturally like a piece of music where every note is carefully placed and orchestrated.

It is easy to see what you don’t like and what doesn’t work in interior design. The real question to answer is: what do you want from your environment? Somewhere on my self- discovery journey in my room, I had figured out what I didn’t like and what didn’t work. I had begun to challenge myself to define what I wanted from the space. 

As a little girl, I had had very little exposure to how a well-designed space worked and felt. I was trying to reconcile my restlessness with the space and how I wanted it to work for me. In my family, if the interior of our home was neat, clean and did the job, that was good enough. I
understood that but was grappling subconsciously with how to take the next step.

Once a year we would drive to St. Michaels in Kwa-Zulu Natal for our annual holiday to visit my grandparents. We would pack our trailer with enough stuff for four weeks; loading my younger sister, our black Alsatian, and me onto the back seat. 

My sister always insisted on sitting behind my mother, and so, I would sit behind my father who needed more legroom. This meant that by the time we arrived at my grandparents I was so relieved to be in a new space and not to feel cramped, that it heightened my awareness of the surroundings. I was delighted to be free of, not only my seat but my kicking sister (sorry sus Iol), the licking dog (bless her soul) and terrible nausea I suffered from when traveling. 

I was so ready for my new surroundings and the wonders that the next four weeks would bring. It was the moment I waited for every year. My annual highlight.

The differences between my grandmother’s houses were vast. My father’s mother, whom we called Granny, loved beautiful things and had collected many treasures from their successful days of trading; she filled every possible part of her house with vintage pieces. Every corner had a cabinet and every open space an ornament. The fabrics were rich velvet with lots of fringes. The pieces, though dated, were timeless and classic. There was a lot of everything. A lot of furniture, carpets, pictures and dogs (including her dogs). My eyes used to delight for hours finding new treasures every time I went to visit. There was always something I hadn’t seen (including new amounts of dog hair and all things crocheted). Granny’s interior design
felt like a treasure trove to me. A space filled with wonderful sensations, unexpected surprises, and happy living.

My Nana’s house, my mother’s mother, was a very elegant home which at the time, I didn’t understand. I just knew the interior design looked and felt different. There were also treasures and beautiful objects that I loved. My eyes were just as engaged, but I felt different in each room. In my Granny’s house each room had a similar “full” feeling to it. Here I felt regal sitting on the teak dining room table and wooden chairs with blue leather. The willow pattern plates on the wall. The patterned wallpaper and curtains with the royal blue carpet and silver candlesticks. I thought that it was a palace.

I used to love to sit at my Nana’s antique dressing table with the silver brushes and put her red lipstick on my lips. She had polio as a child which left her left leg disfigured and fused stiff where they had operated. So, she too had spent many hours lying on her bed being ill.
She was the one who taught me that the best thing to do when you don’t feel like doing anything, or you are feeling down, is to put on a pretty dress, do your hair and put on some lipstick. Her favourite lipstick to wear was red. My sister and I would spend hours playing in her cupboard, trying on her hats, putting on red lipstick and spraying her perfume. 

She gave us complete freedom to explore her space as much as we liked. I felt a sense of freedom here. I lost myself in her cupboard, pretending I was a princess at her table, picking flowers in her garden and sitting at the massive wooden kitchen table that overlooked the garden. When I was there every space did something for me. I liked how that felt. It was here that I discovered the SA Garden and Home magazines that she hoarded under the study table and in the magazine rack next to her sitting chair. I would spend hours and hours absorbing every picture and interior design within it. Cutting them out and putting them into the scrapbooks she bought of us. I didn’t realise then, but this was my very first mood board. My sister would get the best pictures of Lady Di but secretly I really wanted the better pictures of interiors so, it was an easy trade for me. I loved those magazines and the wonderful interior designers who were so creative. She kept every edition for me so that when I would visit in the holidays, not only was I occupied but my head was filled with the possibility of what could be.

Comparing their houses was a game I played in my head. I realised that I liked different things in their homes and considered where I would make improvements. In my Granny’s house I wanted to take things out and open it up. In my Nana’s house I wanted less floral patterns and more contrast. At my Granny’s house you had to walk around the furniture. At my Nana’s house, the spaces were thought through, but the furniture lay on the outskirts of the rooms. 

I re-arranged the interiors of both houses in my mind. I observed how we used the rooms. What areas people gravitated to and why. How you could bring people together and where there should be better flow. Flow I discovered would, in both scenarios, improve their unique styles and highlight the strengths of each. I wanted to find a way to retain the positive feelings their spaces evoked in me but improve how the space functioned and flowed so that I could stay in them longer. I wanted it to feel invigorating and restful at the same time.

I was discovering that a well-designed space needed to flow naturally like a piece of music where every note is carefully placed and orchestrated. 

A well-designed space is not just a random gathering of furniture or objects. A well laid out house is not just filled with beautiful things, but rather a healthy, well-functioning space improves how you operate throughout your day and the quality of what it can give to those around you. Flow helps you begin to create the energy of interior spaces. It helps you give and helps you take. Good functioning spaces serve us. They inspire us. They give us peace. They give us joy. They are the platforms of our lives.

Love