How a creative mind works: My brain deconstructed

Just like music and maths, design is taking the same set of elements and stringing them together in a uniquely exquisite way. 

We use the same elements over and over again…stone, wood, metal, fabrics, wallpaper and combine them to create beautiful rooms every day. It is incredibly fascinating when you deconstruct exactly what it is that we are doing. 

“We are not furniture planners, we are authors of space.” — Nikki

We use fabric and Wallcoverings as our words. Our designs tell a story and what we do is meaningful to us in the same way that all creative people live for fulfilling the vision of their minds eye. 

I want to introduce you to my mind. This is the same mind that can recognize furniture, but not faces. Fabric houses are cataloged in the fabric compartment of my brain, but ask me to remember a name of someone I met 2 days ago, and I assure you I will not remember. My mind is so full of rugs and wallpaper, that it has no room for much else.   My mind is a living cacophony of decor, flying around, waiting to be used. All that has to happen is a little press of the inspiration button and the gates open. 

This is a literal walk-through of my process, so welcome to the inner me… The birth of a cabinet door I do not relish copy and paste. I balk at the idea of rehashing old concepts. So, being the rebel that it is my mind is now starting to whirl to life, fully rejecting every past design.  Its scratching around for something fresh;  I actually and consciously always have the thought “it’s got to be more”. A cabinet can have so many lives, twists and turns, and what can be ordinary becomes sensational. I do not enjoy standard. I want perfection, unique perfection.  

I think “cabinet” and my mind immediately runs to a clear image of a colorless block. It shuffles though a catalog of door fronts. Shaker, molded, flat, traditional, chevron, laser cut…stop. Laser cut.  All of a sudden my brain swings right and I see a pattern. Something a little edgy, perhaps a groove cut out, symmetrically, starting heavily on one door, but as it moves over it becomes more and more fine, until it gently fades away. The wood grain is strong. Espresso oak, with white wash just highlighting the grooves. 

I can see it. I can feel the texture in the tips of my fingers. My skin has a reaction, my hair stands on end.  I can smell it. It now exists in photo clarity in my mind. At this point I see the color, tone, and details.   Can you see it? You probably can’t. It is a major frustration for me that apparently people can’t see into the recesses of my mind. Part of my joy is for my client to share my excitement…there needed to be a fix. 

The Fix

And that is how the Nikki Levy Interiors Render To Reality came about. I want to take our clients on this incredible journey of creative design, and it was not fair for them not to share in the vision.   Our designs are our creation, but they are also our clients aspiration. So, to circumvent the frustration that the mind projector hasn’t been invented, we render the most spectacular renderings, and together with our client, we share in the joy of design. 

I could go on and on about the details that we dream up, and how we are continually falling down the rabbit hole of interior design. Thank goodness you don’t have to go there with us and thank goodness we have the technology to show you our dreams. We want you to love what you live, and our joy in sharing our inspiration with you is exactly why we love what we do. 

Want to Create the Perfect Family Hang-Out at Home? Try these 6 Design Ideas

My three kids, dog, bunny, fish and husband are the best university for family design. Six boys (counting dog, bunny and fish) vs two girls.

Crash course lessons in Family Design 101 have included Middle Son converting our home into an indoor soccer field, while Dog tries to turn it into a restroom (both soon learned neither was an option).

And then there’s Bunny. Who-can-ever-get-mad-at-that-super-soft-and-floppy-eared-bunny Bunny? I did, with him thinking that our base boards are chewing toys. (Did I mention he is free range? Aaaah…Bunny).

So yes, I know what it is to have a family, and how a home is not a museum.

I also completely get it when a client says: “Give me the most inexpensive rug you have, because Ralphie will use it as his personal toilet”. And I too nod in solidarity when a client quakes at the idea of a white sofa.

So you’d think that Family Design 101 would have taught me to design for families. Not so, and so. Here’s the oxymoron.

I continue to be compelled to design beautiful homes, which happen to also be practical. Surely it’s beautiful or practical? Or practically beautiful? Or beautifully practical? Never beautiful and practical.

Well I’m here to tell you it.is.possible. Here’s how.

1. Make the most used rooms the most welcoming

While this seems both simple and obvious, I have had clients who complain that their kids overrun their living room, and steer clear of their family room.

Well, can you name one kid that would rush into a cold sterile environment?  Picture it: no rug, no soft pillows to snuggle up on, and cold hard sofas engineered to survive a jello disaster. If only someone wanted to sit on it. Given the option, kids gravitate towards comfy and cosy.

2. Choose fabrics wisely

We live in a time of great innovation and limitless options.  Faux leather feels so much like soft buttery leather. Teflon-coated fabrics unthreatened by little ketchup hands. Outdoor fabrics that are so fabulous, that they work indoors too – and can even be bleached!

Seriously, there is no excuse not to create a magnificent sofa. We are drowning in options.

3. Pretty works, pretty expensive doesn’t

Give yourself a break. Put furniture into the family room that is good value and quality, but not the most expensive you can find. This room is going to be used, used, and then used again.

My own family room furniture is seven years old. It has lived through a lot. I bought it knowing that it was going to work hard, and knowing that one day I was going to have to either reupholster or get rid of it. It still looks great (good fabric choice), but is getting towards the end of its lifespan. I am okay with that. Not the most expensive piece in my house, but it’s served us well!

4. Deliberately create that family space

Try carve out one space in your home where everyone gravitates towards. In my home, that space is the breakfast-room table. It’s 16 years old, teak-wood, and every lump and bump holds a memory.

I want my kids to sit at the table and color-in and do their projects. I created a space where everything you want to do, from eating to carving an ancient Egyptian plaque, is done.  No one is hiding out in their bedrooms because our home is not a museum

5. Don’t forget about pattern!

Put wallpaper on the walls. Let throw-pillows ooze personality. And choose rugs that have the most incredible designs, are super-soft (your toes will thank you!), but cost next to nothing! Put art on the walls, and be creative with accessories.

Make the most used room in your house a fantastic and welcoming space.

6. Have fun, relax, and enjoy your family

That stain on the rug may always be there, but so will the incredible memories.

Are You Ready to Let Go?

I love my work. In fact, I adore every element of it.

I love my vendors, I love my contractors, I adore my showrooms, and am 100% devoted and committed to my clients. I feel their triumphs and their pain.

Their joy makes me happy and their frustrations make me sad. In fact, I am emotionally connected to my work, and to all the people who make my designs come to life.

Just like every mom is only as happy as her unhappiest kid, so too is every decorator only as happy as her most difficult job. Let me give you an example.

Close your eyes (well, three-quarters shut, because you have to carry on reading), as I paint a picture of what your job means to me.

It’s Saturday evening and I’m out with my husband, enjoying quality time together at a local restaurant, laughing, talking, and having fun.

“Ding”.

It’s a text message. Like Pavlov’s dog, I automatically glance at my phone. Mistake. Big mistake.

It’s a client. In a panic. We placed orders that we literally looked over 100 times, but she feels concerned, worried, scared, and crazed – with PPD (post purchase dementedness).

My husband says “You have that look“, and he knows, our evening is ruined! My problem is two-fold.

1. I want to console my client, tell her, yes, I know you are worried, but we have been over this 1.0.0. times. We saw the fabrics, 3D layouts, and we even snuggled up on a sofa together (one of the perks of working with me, sometimes we get cosy on sofas together to see how comfy they are).
2. I have extreme “decorator’s empathy”. I want to immediately respond and give her my whole night. But, back on Atlantic Avenue, my darling husband is sitting there, for the rare occasion of having a night with just the two of us, and I am pretty sure, somewhere in marriage vows it says “Thou shalt give your spouse a few hours of undivided attention”. So somehow, I have to flick a switch and get back to him.

So, as fun as doing up your home is, and as much as we laugh and talk and chill together, it’s also stressful. It’s outrageous to think it wouldn’t be.

And this ‘stress’ can pop up in many shapes and forms.  Randomly, anticipated, or sometimes crazed-face-jack-in-the-box-kind-of-mad-and-demented-unexpected. But that’s the extreme.

Sometimes the stress is simply that people don’t like change. Sometimes delays are caused by backorders, or it’s the bizarre wait for permits.  Sometimes budget constrains our ‘caviar taste’. Sometime the stress is clients overthinking things, making decisions so complicated that they spin in circles.

But here’s the secret. And you can open your eyes now.

If you let me do my job, and accept that “stress” and “panic” are natural and organic bi-products of “change” – and not always in a negative way, we should do just great.

And it is all of this energy that we harness to create something breath-takingly beautiful, together.

So when we walk into your exquisite home at the end of the job, and all your worries and concerns wash away, I look forward to a different kind of text on a Saturday night.

I smile as I see a picture of you and your friends sitting around your living room, in front of a fireplace, on a 100 degree Florida night!

Call Me Color Crazy!

When you were a little kid, you would come home from school with pictures you drew of your future home.

A rainbow and rows of little flowers, in front of a yellow square house, with an orange triangular roof on top (often with a rectangular chimney – smoke always billowing out). The front door would be red, the blue square windows with the mandatory crosses inside. The tied back drapes inside had intricate purple and orange patterns.

This was the house of your dreams.  Your unrestricted mind embraced color. The more color and detail, the happier you were.

As you got older, your creativity was tamed, your bright future dimmed into neutral hues, sedate and prim. No longer did your home represent the childhood you, but rather, the adult you. Serious, practical and thinking 10 years ahead. And I get it.

I get that spending money on big items can be scary.

Spending $5,000 on a sofa is no joke – so let’s make sure that we love it in 10 years. And drapes. They need to be oh-so neutral. You would hate to be bored with them in a year.

So it is with fear and practicality that you embark on making the most inoffensive home you can. A home that will never offend your senses, a home that will last forever, and a home that is completely VANILLA!

Come on! Let’s now rethink our logic.

You are creating your home. You are creating the only environment in THE WHOLE WORLD (yes, all in caps!) that you control! This house is “you”. It’s the physical representation of how you see yourself, and your life and your family.

And you make it vanilla?

Don’t get me wrong, I love vanilla. If it’s done right, it’s decadent, it’s luxurious (let’s not kid, a single vanilla pod is $5!). And it is a great base. I am thrilled to start with vanilla, throw some frosting on, and then add the sprinkles (rainbow sprinkles, of course).

In design talk, that translates into a neutral base.  Perhaps the sofa is beige, but it’s offset with a hot pink pillow, or rug that is so fantastically fun, that you smile every time you see it. That’s the frosting!

Next the sprinkles, art-away to your hearts content. Find that art piece that no one gets but you and your husband, that piece that is all about you and your life. Your mom may hate it, your best friend might balk, but you and your husband found it on that fantastic vacation.  Every time you see it, it brings warm memories. It’s the Unafraid You.

Wallpaper, accessories, rugs, lighting are no longer sedate and one dimensional. They are fantastical, bold, colorful, and textural. Beads, fabric, metals, glass, mesh, silk, bamboo, lacquered, fabric-wrapped and on and on.

The sky’s the limit!

So please, yes, let’s do the plain Jane items, and then throw out the rule book. Add color, joy and life to your home. Let your soul and your sofa be one.

What Makes a Design Work?

(Hint: Think “Us”)

When I meet a client for the first time, I am already scanning and processing all the information that is being projected. My design antenna is capturing, sorting and storing my new client’s ‘design vibes’.

She opens the front door, no shoes, shorts, and a stained white t-shirt, I pick up ‘casual, practical, young family’.

She opens the door in a chic blush pair of pants, nude kittens and a silk blouse. I receive ‘professional, put together, grown kids’.

And then I meet you.

From that moment, your home interior is starting to take shape. My synapses are firing, ideas are forming, and rooms are starting to be built up in my mind’s eye.

Because the interior of your home is all about YOU! It’s a projection of who you are, what you are about!

The most important aspect of “us” (now we are a team) is our designer relationship – our rapport. We need to gel, vibe, understand each other.

It’s like a design marriage, for a good year (or two, or three), we are going to be in each other’s lives. Sometimes it’s forever (next Tuesday night, I am going out with my very first client I ever had!). We are going to sort through our priorities, understand what design aesthetics represent you, and then, we are going to pull together and GET YOUR HOUSE DONE!

To achieve maximum “you” in your home, you need to let me know who you are, what you like, what’s important to you.

I was once blown away by a client, a professional at the top of her field, who was a big softy under it all. Until we uncovered that side of her personality, we had not settled on a look and feel. Once she started telling me about her family, parents, husband, her home interiors began to take beautiful shape. The look softened, the tones became whimsical, in such an interesting modern way.

I finished her home about three years ago. She tells me she still loves it, and she can’t believe her home is finally there. After 25 years of owning a home, having used multiple decorators in the past, she finally has a home that is “completely her”.

And then I have clients who find it hard to articulate what design style they love.

I understand, I find it tough to articulate how I feel about food. (Get to know me and you will soon learn that I have never cooked a meal, and my staple food is chocolate). My husband has to order for me in restaurants. I find it an impossible decision! It is my job to help you discover your true aesthetic.

To make our design successful, in the case of “design fog”, show me a picture, tell me about restaurants, hotels, and even a movie in which an interior caught your eye.

One client was very shy to tell me she LOVED the apartment in 50 Shades of Grey. Once she got that off her chest, we laughed, clinked our wine glasses, and got going on the home of her dreams (the family friendly  version, of course).

Besides color, tones, furniture, layout, and the other design elements that are vital to design, without “us” it’s all irrelevant! I look forward to meeting you, getting to know you, and then you and me creating us!