The Most Successful Interiors Are Decorated with the Artifacts We Collect – They Tell Our Story and Make a House a Home
Giving room to photographs, objects acquired on our travels, inherited furniture, and art is not just about how they look, but what they mean to us
There is no better way to personalize our homes than with the artifacts of our lives: photographs, objects acquired on our travels, inherited furniture, and art.
The most powerful of these artifacts, and the ones we cherish most, are the ones that conjure a place and time to which we are connected in some meaningful way.
The only rule for displaying these items in our homes is to give them positions of distinction befitting their significance to us, regardless of their sophistication or monetary worth.
In my home, the antique maps of Cheshire, England that my husband collected prior to our marriage are displayed in the same space as the rocks I have picked up from the streets, beaches, and grasslands I have visited. And this is the theme for the most effective design schemes I have seen for collected objects, whose function is to remind as much as to decorate.
Fine art and children’s drawings, antique wooden furniture and sleek modern upholstery; precious metals and primitive stone sculptures, modern fixtures and leather-bound books all work together to tell our stories when rooted in our histories and passions.
Find and display those things you connect with, and you have a home.
My artifacts, and the travels that allow me to assemble them, play a pivotal role in my work, and my recent collection, Mementos, is a tribute to the creative power they hold.
One of its most evocative textiles, Noble, was inspired by a pair of crystal earrings I acquired from a street vendor after attending the Baccarat exhibit at its new Paris showroom, which displayed a fiery, intricately designed chandelier. I couldn’t take the chandelier home, but I could carry a bit of its beauty with me in miniature form.
Montage is a handwoven wallcovering that captures the slubs and texture of an antique kimono I acquired outside of Kyoto, which bore the marks of the fine craftsmanship exhibited in handmade Japanese textiles.
"Find and display those things you connect with, and you have a home."
Stools: Expedition T1200/03 Nightfall. Pillow: Noble T1205/04 Moss
Expedition, the most passionate and heartfelt of the designs in the collection, is based on the memories and photos of the majestic animals I encountered in Botswana. No souvenir could capture the impact of their presence; the emotional memory and photographs were my collectibles, my muse.
A recent collection, entitled Alhambra, features a similarly inspired design called Medina: a mylar wallcovering that captures the patterning of one single ceramic floor tile spotted during my tour of the majestic palace.
In my Chelsea design studio, we have lucite trays positioned on our worktables that display whatever is inspiring me and my team at the moment. Some of these items are from exotic locations, some are very local, and some are in between. The qualifications for what makes it into the trays, my textile collections, and my home are all the same: a connection to the beauty they hold and the story they tell.
Interior designer Lori Weitzner is one of Homes & Gardens' Editors-At-Large for By Design, sharing her thoughts on decor.
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