Reading Inside Design by Michael Greer (copyright 1962), I find myself enjoying this delightful and easy to read book on interior "decorating". What a welcome break from the tedious college bound interior design books often part of our course cirriculm (and $$$$!). Each chapter is exactly one page in length accompanied by a beautifully composed interior photo (predominantly b&w)- "decorated" by Mr Greer himself. The first chapter, Piece de resistance. His thoughts are that everyone must have at least one, and it should be both outrageous and priced outside of your budget.
"Whether or not you have much money to spend, but especially if you haven't, you need one marvelous decorative object which you love outrageously, which you may have spent far more for than you could afford, and perhaps which on one else in his right mind would ever have spend as much for as you did." -- Michael Greer
That got me thinking.....It's hard just naming one, and as a student of interior design, I love and have a passion for all things "beautiful", or should I re clarify, I love all things "inspirational". (...well that's another blog down the road.). So, what's my piece de resistance? Fortunately, there's many! Just last week, I visited the Indian store in Los Gatos and picked up a fetish and a folk art piece--an owl, which is now perching on top of my South American armoire. The fetish is sitting happily on top of the mantle underneath the pair of faux antlers (Fortunately I won the antelers at an ASID Design Award Ceremony! ). But I'm unable to stop there.... Then there's the beautiful custom bedding and window treatments in my master bedroom--coverlet, shams, pillows et all. And, how I love how the eyes follow the ceiling mounted crystal light fixture then up and down the leading ege of the window treatements from the crystal beads. Oh, and this was definitely priced out of my budget. Luckily for me, I was employed at Calico Corners so the employee discount was S-W-E-E-T! So you might guess where this is going...there's not just one piece de resistance going on in this home. It's all around. The goal is to have this follow me in every room--but that will take time and a lot of budget.
What's your piece de resistance? Do you dare to have just one? Some day I hope to own something "French" oh! la! la! perhaps from the Directoire or Art Deco period. Oh, and how about something zen, like a Japanese tea room, and on and on and on....
"It's too bad when the piece de resistance is so big that it detracts from the setting, but that's life; the piece de resistance, like a brown-eyed gene, tends to have its own dominant way."--Michael Greer
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