I was just wondering how many of you ID guys take your still home. I am married and I am lucky that my wife, not being close to a designer (HR rep for a law firm) has the same taste as me. Just wondering how many of you take your style at work and bring it home. In my eyes it is hard to turn it of. Whether it is cooking, to home design, to even how my car looks. Just wondering if everyone else here is the same.
Mine is miserable…
I just come home to… eat and sleep.
Humm post or pre divorce…pre i did a lot of design and construction for my home, post much less so. In the divorce she got all of the home “stuff” so that kinda gutted me, compounding this is my lack of enthuasiam in just building stuff for “fun”. You have heard the old saying about picking a great mechanic, “a great mechanics car is in disrepair, because he is too busy fixing other to fix his own”. That describes me now to a great extent.
I try to be pretty 360 designer… not full on over the top expensive everything, but I try to make every purchase I make equate to buying good design… I expect consumers to buy my work, I feel that I should do the same when buying products outside my industry, or furniture, or cars, or whatever. I’m working on the house, I’d like to start on an architect designed home in the next 5 years… my wife gets it… I’m lucky…
I definitely take my style home with me.
I think designers need to be extra-creative, since they can’t afford what they really want. But I take pride in being a bargainist too–just another element of “lifestyle design!”
yes you are!
compromise has turned into a four letter word, just not sure how it’s spelled…?
I get them in where I can, and she surprises me from time to time, but what really annoys me is that Nate Berkus (see Oprah design guy) has more influence with her than I do. Particularly annoying / but also nice when now she likes Chair “x” or whatever.
We always joked when we were dating that I would “get the basement.”
Funny how those “jokes” before we were married kinda come full circle.
I have managed to take a passive agressive approach to this topic. When we go to redesign, I put my comments on the pile and they get dismissed. A few months later she sees my suggestion at someone else’s house and says “man, I should have listened to you”. This has happened at least 5 times.
Now…all design gets my final approval 
I have been lucky with this. I love furniture and all sorts of home design so she has let me do pretty much our whole condo. As far as painting, tiling, cabnets, etc… She also is pretty creative so she throws in her ideas as well. The only thing is we have only been married for about 3 1/2 months, so that may change.
ahh the golden time, get back to us in 9 months, then again at 3 years and at 6-7 years…gooooooooooooood luck 
too true
The bargin aspect makes it more fun.
Yes they are the golden years but we lived together for 3 years before we got married so its not that bad.
my home, my life, my stuff, i try to take design into all of it. been accused of being OCD on the subject, but cant bring myself to buy/live with crap.
my personal philosophy, is to only buy “things” once. i’d rather do with nothing than something “just for now”.
as an example, in university, i rented a 3 room house, and sublet the other two rooms. the main living space was “my domain” (my lease). had the living room decked out with second hand eames chairs and danish style teak sofa, 60’s electrohome cabinet stereo, bubble record player etc. the house came with an ugly old (not old enough to be cool), tv. it didnt fit the room style, so it went into the garage. when i got new roomates, i gave it one of them rather than have it look fugly in the living room.i had a 10" 60’s b&w tv in my room, i was more than happy with.
likewise in the kitchen, it was full 50’s chrome appliances. again, a microwave came with the house, but looked terrible with everything else. gave it to my roomate and did without.
when i first bought my loft, i went 9 months with no sofa, looking for the perfect one. my search paid off. scored a second hand B&B Italia that rocks my world every time i sit on it.
im single, btw.
in all my life, i have never regretted buying something that is a little more expensive, but feel like sh*t buying something im not really happy with.
dropped 5K on a marc newson biomega bike, and hardly ride it, but dont feel bad at all. love looking at it every day. (and it glows in the dark so i can split the purchase into bike/lamp in my head to justify it 
recently got a $10 stapler for the home office, and hate it. makes me feel bad that i had to settle (couldnt find something i really liked, but still need to staple!).
like i said…just a little OCD on the subject
R
The best part is that you can still find good design at bargin prices. I am all about the actual house. What can I do to this house to make it look great and to make it see for more money. When my wife and I (at the time was my girlfreind) moved into our 2 bed room condo it had not been touched sense 1985. It still had construction primer on the walls. We have done so much to the place that you would never think it looked the way it did. But with that said it was all about shopping around. Being a newly experienced ID guy (about 4 years) and living in NJ you have to really do your bargin shopping to find what you want and like you RK I will only buy it if it is what I am looking for. But that is what I think makes it great and is what makes you use your imagination. Its no different than any other ID project.
my room’s a thrash
the living room’s a heaven
my kitchen a bistro
and the semi living room
a reader’s corner.
my staircase’s my excercise spiral.
so i guess i’m sort of a funny looking hamster ??
I’m lucky, my wife does the interior decoration for me. I just too busy at work to end up making design decisions at home as well…
My home is a narrowboat, it’s only 6ft 10 wide, most domestic furniture will not fit. It’s strange going to IKEA and realising that 90% of what they stock is of no use to me! Even wine glasses (with stems) are useless here, we use tumblers (french Bistro style).
In a way having little space is freeing, being here changed my attitude to consuming. I can only keep the things I really love, I find I don’t get stuff for the sake of it.
My partner was raised to not waste or overconsume and it’s rubbing off on me. I wanted to change the tiles in the bathroom, but I’ve had to compromise - it’s wasteful to change them when they aren’t broken or worn.
It’s ironic coz I work in a throwaway trade, but I tend to try and buy second hand, not new. That’s fine by me though, I get so much more satisfaction when I pick up something beautiful and old for pennies after searching for months, rather than going to Selfridges and spending £100’s for something easily available. I love vintage textiles in particular, I’ve quite a collection going.
I relish things that are practical, anything that folds away, anything that has more than one use. We have an amazing table in the front cabin, it folds flat undr the gunwhales when not in use, but it can be expanded to set six people if needed. I also have a little Philippe Stark table (with a lid) that I keep kindling and firelighters in. I find it creatively really exciting and challenging thinking of solutions to storage and work on this boat.
I’m not the only designer here living this way, my boating neighbour owns a luxe lingerie brand, selling $300 brassieres to Barneys and other prestigious accounts. And she is pratically freegan!
In the future, I’d imagine we 'll keep this boat as it is a lovely good quality hull, we’ll refit as needs be, we could even add a cabin and go longer if we wanted to. There are narrowboats in the UK, fro the 1880’s that are still going strong and still being lived in.!
I think the future house should really be mobile and I mean really mobile that we can escape in the event that earth is no longer inhabbitable…
nothing like positive thinking…
Living aboard is totaly different and your right brings a new perspective. I have lived aboard a number of time in boats ranging from a 30’ catalina sailboat to 55’ chris craft. My long term plan is to buy a larger canal barge and tour europe the slow way, by canal at 4 mph.