Day 2 of 5: Designer Dialogue
PRB Interior Designs turning 5 — yay! I am continuing to share 5 things about my personal home and sharing what “real life” looks like for me day-in and day-out. Nothing is cleaned up or staged; this is truly how I live 24/7.
Let’s get started with number 2! This is my guest bedroom/ library/ music room/ sitting room. This room is definitely our multi use space and so fun because it’s a great reflection of my husband and me. My absolute favorite part of our guest bedroom is that we each have our own bookcases (his pictured here) but more on that in a minute. My husband and I love to have people over so although a day bed doesn’t seem practical for multiple guests we actually have 2 memory foam mattresses! There is a trundle below the bed-frame and since they are twin XL mattresses our guests technically get the same effect of having a king size bed — we think it’s a win/win. A sentimental feature of this room is the piano. It was in my grandmother’s home for many, many years and was actually the piano the I learned to play on, as well as, my mother and her sister. It may need to be tuned but my mother and I have played Christmas carols on it each year since I inherited it.
So as I mentioned above my absolute favorite thing about this room are our bookcases. My husband’s is so neat and orderly, filled with military books and memorabilia. Then there’s the juxtaposition of my bookcase… completely random: books stacked, piled and on display, photos of friends and family, flower vases and inspirational quotes, but my absolute favorite thing is my collection of Disney snow globes. I have currently have over 100 globes and statues and this is just a small portion of my collection. They mean the world to me because my aunt used to receive them as a gift from her father each time they would go to Disneyland. When he passed away and she no longer had room to show them off or store them, my mom and I rented a truck and drove cross country together to bring them all back to my new home (which I had actually just purchased the month before). It is a wonderful memory and I think of it each time I look at one of the snow globes. Disney and my life in California are a big reason my I got into interior design and maybe just one day I will become an Imagineer.
Some people may know this because I talk about it in my speeches often, but my home was purchased as a flip — and a flip/ renovation that it was too late for me to have any say in. Are there parts of this room I don’t like? Absolutely! The carpet for example is not ideal in texture or color but it is brand-new and there is nothing wrong with it so I refused to replace it; I tried to make my décor work around it. I am not a wasteful designer. I like to reuse, refinish and repurpose as much as I can. Since we had to deal with this carpet I planned on purchasing wood furniture in similar brown tones to minimize contrasts, except for the piano obviously. That then opened up the opportunity to use a fun yet calming paint color on the walls; I chose a purple-y grey.
Another thing to think about when deciding furniture, from bookcases to bedding is its clean-ability. If it’s important to you, then always ask yourself, “How much maintenance will it take to keep this clean?” It doesn’t seem like much and since it’s a small room that doesn’t get used daily it may seem easy to keep clean, but there are key features that make cleaning a challenge. The spindle rods on the bed, the statue on the piano and all of the items on the bookcase, especially my precious snow globes, gather dust that’s hard to reach. That needed to be a conscious choice when choosing (or purchasing) decorative items. Also, the limited number of outlets and their inconvenient placement makes adding lamps a concern and vacuuming a challenge.
I do hope that sharing my loves and lessons within my own home are comforting you in knowing that you’re not alone and no home is perfect. Each and every project I work on I aim for livability not likeability (social media likes that is). I love just talking about design and working through solutions together, so let me know how I can help you!
