styling & staging
Staging is a concept best applied to temporary design opportunities wherein some theatricality is encouraged: property sales or rentals, holiday decor. Styling is the everyday aesthetic of balanced beauty. Styling is part of staging. Taking the skills used to create warm, comfortable living spaces can be amped up for staging rooms to be presented in sale properties. We can show you how.
Styled mantel. Balanced beauty, but not symmetrical.
We style things all the time in our lives everyday. It is a choice that brings more calm and a harmonious atmosphere which promotes a more settled headspace. This past year? Well, we did not have Calgon, so SOMETHING had to take us away…We were home All. The. Damn. Time.
To be honest, once you get going, it is a bit of an addiction. Seeking a balanced composition in the small affects the large. Then everything exists in a “better” relationship to each other. Except people. People don’t always get it. Our partners are not on board with the “perfect” arrangement of plastic bottles on the vitamin carrel, (with labels, with their shrieking fonts, turned to the back, and tallest at the rear, ‘natch, ) but it LITERALLY causes us pain when the bottles are out of “order”…
Stretching…
Envisioning the perfect calm of Velazquez Las Meninas or Degas’ dancers.
Aaaaaand we’re back.
Styling should fall within the realm of actual living conditions. Objects not on Broadway, but in mostly permanent exhibition behind the museum glass? Well, not really, but you know what we mean! Umbrellas are great to have by the front door, says all dog walkers everywhere but especially in Seattle, but they can be corralled in an attractive container rather will-aye nill-aye all over the floor.
We get asked all the time by folks who are searching for better decor and more peace in their lives if “calm” is equivalent to empty or they ask us while holding an armful of objects while absentmindedly stroking great aunt pearl’s button back chair like an old collie. You know that chair is not going to “live on a farm” if you take it to the share shed, right?
The question we asked, long before decluttering became the hottest new hobby, was “Do you love your things?” — if you love your things, do you want to make your space work for YOU.
Here’s the big thing? It’s not the clutter. It’s how the clutter occupies the space.
Styled “We love our things” vs. Real Life “We love ALL our things”:
Styling outfits— finding the right balance of pieces and accessories to highlight the positive and elide over perceived deficits with the goal of feeling sharp. Check that. Before we stayed home for a year and all we wore were pajamas.
A styled outfit.
Here are some of our styling & staging boards for more ideas:
