Lessons from my mother

I lost my mother 20 years ago.  Her illness and eventual passing was shocking—she was bursting with life, infinite in the love she shared and unrelenting in her humor. Her ability to lift anyone’s spirit was her legacy. She was everyone’s friend.

But she was far from a domestic goddess! My father often teased that her attempts at cooking were so bad her steak was tougher than the soles of his shoes! And that when she tried to boil water, she burnt it!

But a goddess she was when it came to keeping the home a place for her family to enjoy, a home where we played, ate and went merry in the company of friends and relatives. Yet the merrymaking didn’t come without firm ground rules. Despite her seemingly benign character, she held a big stick. Mother policed her mothership. She also had strong notions on what was orderly, beautiful and aesthetically acceptable. From her I learned my basic design sensibilities: keeping things uncluttered, simple, put-together, and minimal in color and texture. She reminded me that money had nothing to do with good taste, and that design takes time and must be an expression of your personality. Here were her other basic tenets:

1 Always keep things organized. Beauty starts with order, and nothing of great visual value will ever stand out unless it is positioned properly, and not in the midst of chaos. She would occasionally inspect my bedroom and raise her voice whenever it looked as if a bomb had just exploded inside. I would get a mild expletive or two plus a nasty glare, and that would send me scrambling to fix my piles of clothes and papers. She insisted I used trays, boxes and anything that would keep any loose bits from wandering.

2 Keep things understated. She used to use the term “estrambotico” to describe things she found distasteful, outlandish, flamboyant, bizarre, or freakishly extravagant. It was territory she would not tread on, nor touch with a 10-foot pole. She would point out places and pieces that did so, and shake her head in disagreement. There is enough impact from simple things coming together in a visually significant way, she would say (“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!”). Each element should be appreciated on its own or as a part of its environment.

3 Stay with three colors or three-color hues. While the process of putting a color scheme together is a matter of personal taste, my mother would declare that three was enough. Any additional color should be for accents and accessorizing. She remarked that even the countries whose flags had lesser colors had more powerful visual impact.

4 Combine the prints or patterns to complement each other. Prints with stripes, big stripes with small stripes, big dots with small dots, organic and geometric. They should always be combined with a contrast in visual texture that will allow each pattern to be appreciated and in a scale that is appropriate for the size of the room and its furniture pieces.

5 Heavy textures don’t work in our tropical environment. Unless, of course, your rooms are air-conditioned all the time—but she was the outdoor type and liked our windows open and the sun streaming in. Plush fabrics like velvets and suedes look luxurious and warm, but trap a lot of heat in the thickness of their fibers—body heat included! Not ideal in our weather. Instead, she liked “breathable” fabrics like cottons or linens. If you still want to look luxurious, explore the use of silk.

6 Keep things in order by groupings. A cardinal rule for accessorizing! You see, my mother loved collecting things, and she would either present them as a collection, or gather them into decorative groupings with a concept. She collected elephant figurines and displayed them according to the pose of the animal, and according to their scale, so that in their varied materials, the larger elephants came together in what looked sculptural in its arrangement. Items that were too varied were kept in proper display cases.

7 Keep your home “usable.” There were no off-limits spaces. “This is not a museum” she once said. Every piece of furniture or every room was available for every member of the family. That gave me good memories built from the many rooms of a happy home. Yet, we were constantly reminded to organize, pick up and clean up or be verbally whacked! Like skillful criminals, we had to leave no clue or evidence of our use or presence.

As a designer, I’m constantly learning the precarious art of balancing aesthetics and functional needs. Beautiful spaces are made to inspire people, and the enjoyment of a space should never be at the mercy of its design. That is something my mother taught me. I look at it as the proper perspective for designing spaces.