Me? Indecisive?

I seem to have run into a little problem while attempting to make design decisions for my new apartment. When I design for clients they give me a jumping off point, whether it's a specific style they like, or certain colors that they can and can't live with. When designing for myself, my jumping off point is...anything I've ever seen and loved, and that is not a short list. I've purposely exposed myself and opened my heart and mind to all types of styles and all color palettes so that I can be the best designer possible for my clients. But when it comes to designing for myself that just means one thing, I can't make up my mind. 

So when it came time to select a sofa fabric, I scowered the fabric district in downtown LA and all of the fabric outlets I know of in Orange County and finally settled on a lovely brown linen. It was a pretty, mocha/gray/brown, but it was still brown. When I came to my senses I called up my best design friend Nathan and asked him why, why out of all the amazing colors out there, when I could finally pick anything I want, I chose brown? We came up with one main reason: I love too many colors, so brown was an escape from having to choose among them and commit to just one. (This sounds like a metaphor for my love life, and let me tell ya...that aint a pretty situation). 

Every time I see a pink sofa in a room my heart skips a beat. (Yes, I realize it's just a piece of furniture.) And pink is probably my favorite color if I absolutely had to choose. So when I abandoned the brown linen, I kept trying to visualize my home with a pink sofa. I love the photo above from Lonny Magazine. It uses pink but in a setting that's not too frilly or girly and feels very "me". The problem I ran in to when I thought about having a pink sofa, was that my coffee table (that I purchased long ago) is white and I have a lot of vintage blue/green bottles and jars that I'll be using to accessorize, and the thought of pink, white, and bluish green felt too feminine for what I wanted my home to be. 

images left, right

Windsor Smith (interiors shown above), a designer who I admire so much, uses this color palate often. I love her interiors, but yes, the ones with this color combo do have a very feminine feel. I love to look at these interiors and it would be so fun to design something like this for a client, but in the end it didn't entirely feel like it fit my personality.

So what did I finally decide on?

...brown's hipper, more sophisticated cousin, gray. I know, super exciting right? In the end, it just made the most sense with the other pieces of furniture that I already own. If I was starting completely from scratch, things might be a little different, but my poor friend Carly has been looking at this for two weeks...

So it was time to make a decision so that we have a place to sit. I'll probably still infuse pink in to the room with pillows and flowers, but it won't be so obvious. And I'm going to continue with the blue/green and use that for drapery. Here's a little break down of what I have so far...

As I was doing this on my own, I started to realize that this is one of the reasons why people with a good design sense still sometimes hire a designer. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off of and give a second opinion, and in the end help you pull the trigger on a sofa fabric.