Take a couple of minutes to think about the house you're living in right now....
Imagine that you've been evicted and you have to pack up and leave in the next couple of hours...what will you envision when you look at every room for the last time? When you walk out and look behind you at the door, after 2,5 or 10 years of living there you realize that everything's been reduced to memories. You might think of the days you locked yourself up in that place to format your mind, the times you would kick back and relax with your friends, the dinner parties or the candle light dinner you prepared for you and your special someone, the breakfast you would look forward to on the weekends with your favourite neighbour, the time you got prepped up and ready for that date that changed your life, or that job meeting that opened new doors for you. While I moved from one house to another during my student years in Toronto, I always spent my last day in each place, reflecting on all the things I had experienced during my stay. Even though they were all temporary homes, my heart would still rush if I were to pass by them.A home is a reference point in your life, because it reminds you of who you were when you were living there.
Suki has stepped back into the sweatpants she had worn out in university. She is back at her parents' house and there is nothing stopping her from looking and feeling like a bum. After months of waking up early to dress up for meetings and events, she had missed walking around with not an ounce of makeup on her face. Not to say there weren't days when she was mistaken for the janitor at her office, or the "baladiyye" officer, but lately she had become a walking-talking ad machine which is why she had to look good all the time. Her facial muscles were suffering the consequences of all the smiles she's had to hold still...Afterall that's the face that was now reflecting the magazine she passionately worked for, and being the perfectionist that she is, she always made sure to leave an impression on the people she met. Right now though, she was at the comfort of her childhood home and the only obligation she had was setting the table for dinner. She remembers being all dolled up for her 12th grade prom and taking photos in the living room with her date and returning from her studies abroad to a crisp bed and an aura of freshly baked cookies. She left and returned, left and returned, left and returned as a new person each time. But the home remained the same, the comfort was still there. Now she had returned as a working woman, not a student nor a post-graduate, unemployed procrastinator, and the home had welcomed her the way it always did. Being there made her think of the new apartment she had recently moved into...In a city that can easily suck you into a black hole of meaningless friendships that evaporate faster than you can recover from a hangover...How can she ever recreate the comfort of her childhood home in her current living space?
We all want to have a beautiful view, a huge balcony, a lovely garden, lots of daylight...etc. but we have to make do with what is available to us right now and build our lives around it. I went from living on the 22nd floor of a luxury tower to the 1st floor of a 22 floor building. I've always liked to have a unique living space, and there's something about the large terrace in my studio apartment, that spoke to me. I instantly imagined lanterns and strings of light hanging from the ceiling, colourful table cloths and large cushions spread across the floor...melodramatic Lebanese folkloric music playing in the background, and my guests mixing and mingling while sipping on wine and munching on treats. New friends, old friends, work friends I want to make an impression on, all gathered at my Bohemian house warming on the terrace for a night to remember.
I'm no interior designer, but i love to decorate and i'm going all out with this house. It is true that Dubai is a transitory place, and many people refrain from spending too much time or money on decorating their homes. I did that during uni, i used a shoe rack as a multi purpose shelf for years and that's because I knew I was only there temporarily and was living a student life. When you start earning money, it completely changes the way you think; as a young professional you now have the privilege toIndulge. Some people indulge in shopping, some in travel, and others in....decorating! The process of "indulgence" itself, is therapeutic especially when you feel you've earned it through your hard work! The energy you put into your work, everyday, is reflected through whatever it is that you decide to spend on.Simply put, if we think of our energy being circulated through money then we won't see that beautiful carpet we bought as a splurge but rather an objectification of our thoughts and emotions. its colours, its shape, its patterns...etc I'm not saying you succumb to the very purpose of advertisers' jobs,which is to touch on people's emotions to sell products, and to spend half your salary on designer purses; I'm saying that a good way to be grateful for the money we have, no matter how much it is, is to acknowledge and appreciate how it came to us and how it's leaving us. Maybe the more thankful we are, the more motivated we become to pay it forward...just some food for thought :) (i will share with you my story in a later post)
My current form of indulgence is decorating my home, and here are some of my observations from this experience:
1- Start off with a base color(s) which helps you find everything else! (mine are white and brown)
3- Recycle--- if you already have an old piece of furniture, either integrate it with new furniture or refurbish it!
4- Go on the lookout for random things you can use as furniture. I.e you might be surprised by what you can find at a construction site! Mix them up with regular furniture pieces, so that they stand out.
5- Consult yourself! I feel like our fashion style is very similar to our decorating one. I, for example, am boho chic, feminine with a touch of edge, and I also love mixing ethnic prints and patterns
As a Cancerian, who are known to be crafty, I like to make things myself. My decor style is that of romanticism and I like creating a garden/cottage aura in my house. We are nostalgic creatures by nature, and like to keep a connection to the past through our decor and the colors we choose.
Imagine that you've been evicted and you have to pack up and leave in the next couple of hours...what will you envision when you look at every room for the last time? When you walk out and look behind you at the door, after 2,5 or 10 years of living there you realize that everything's been reduced to memories. You might think of the days you locked yourself up in that place to format your mind, the times you would kick back and relax with your friends, the dinner parties or the candle light dinner you prepared for you and your special someone, the breakfast you would look forward to on the weekends with your favourite neighbour, the time you got prepped up and ready for that date that changed your life, or that job meeting that opened new doors for you. While I moved from one house to another during my student years in Toronto, I always spent my last day in each place, reflecting on all the things I had experienced during my stay. Even though they were all temporary homes, my heart would still rush if I were to pass by them.A home is a reference point in your life, because it reminds you of who you were when you were living there.
Suki has stepped back into the sweatpants she had worn out in university. She is back at her parents' house and there is nothing stopping her from looking and feeling like a bum. After months of waking up early to dress up for meetings and events, she had missed walking around with not an ounce of makeup on her face. Not to say there weren't days when she was mistaken for the janitor at her office, or the "baladiyye" officer, but lately she had become a walking-talking ad machine which is why she had to look good all the time. Her facial muscles were suffering the consequences of all the smiles she's had to hold still...Afterall that's the face that was now reflecting the magazine she passionately worked for, and being the perfectionist that she is, she always made sure to leave an impression on the people she met. Right now though, she was at the comfort of her childhood home and the only obligation she had was setting the table for dinner. She remembers being all dolled up for her 12th grade prom and taking photos in the living room with her date and returning from her studies abroad to a crisp bed and an aura of freshly baked cookies. She left and returned, left and returned, left and returned as a new person each time. But the home remained the same, the comfort was still there. Now she had returned as a working woman, not a student nor a post-graduate, unemployed procrastinator, and the home had welcomed her the way it always did. Being there made her think of the new apartment she had recently moved into...In a city that can easily suck you into a black hole of meaningless friendships that evaporate faster than you can recover from a hangover...How can she ever recreate the comfort of her childhood home in her current living space?
We all want to have a beautiful view, a huge balcony, a lovely garden, lots of daylight...etc. but we have to make do with what is available to us right now and build our lives around it. I went from living on the 22nd floor of a luxury tower to the 1st floor of a 22 floor building. I've always liked to have a unique living space, and there's something about the large terrace in my studio apartment, that spoke to me. I instantly imagined lanterns and strings of light hanging from the ceiling, colourful table cloths and large cushions spread across the floor...melodramatic Lebanese folkloric music playing in the background, and my guests mixing and mingling while sipping on wine and munching on treats. New friends, old friends, work friends I want to make an impression on, all gathered at my Bohemian house warming on the terrace for a night to remember.
I'm no interior designer, but i love to decorate and i'm going all out with this house. It is true that Dubai is a transitory place, and many people refrain from spending too much time or money on decorating their homes. I did that during uni, i used a shoe rack as a multi purpose shelf for years and that's because I knew I was only there temporarily and was living a student life. When you start earning money, it completely changes the way you think; as a young professional you now have the privilege toIndulge. Some people indulge in shopping, some in travel, and others in....decorating! The process of "indulgence" itself, is therapeutic especially when you feel you've earned it through your hard work! The energy you put into your work, everyday, is reflected through whatever it is that you decide to spend on.Simply put, if we think of our energy being circulated through money then we won't see that beautiful carpet we bought as a splurge but rather an objectification of our thoughts and emotions. its colours, its shape, its patterns...etc I'm not saying you succumb to the very purpose of advertisers' jobs,which is to touch on people's emotions to sell products, and to spend half your salary on designer purses; I'm saying that a good way to be grateful for the money we have, no matter how much it is, is to acknowledge and appreciate how it came to us and how it's leaving us. Maybe the more thankful we are, the more motivated we become to pay it forward...just some food for thought :) (i will share with you my story in a later post)
My current form of indulgence is decorating my home, and here are some of my observations from this experience:
1- Start off with a base color(s) which helps you find everything else! (mine are white and brown)
3- Recycle--- if you already have an old piece of furniture, either integrate it with new furniture or refurbish it!
4- Go on the lookout for random things you can use as furniture. I.e you might be surprised by what you can find at a construction site! Mix them up with regular furniture pieces, so that they stand out.
5- Consult yourself! I feel like our fashion style is very similar to our decorating one. I, for example, am boho chic, feminine with a touch of edge, and I also love mixing ethnic prints and patterns
As a Cancerian, who are known to be crafty, I like to make things myself. My decor style is that of romanticism and I like creating a garden/cottage aura in my house. We are nostalgic creatures by nature, and like to keep a connection to the past through our decor and the colors we choose.
6- Look at space from a different perspective..and this is not only related to the space inside your home. It's liberating to think of space as abstract, as something malleable rather than a concrete reality. (that was one of my favorite classes in uni) Just because something is shaped a certain way, or has a specific purpose, doesn't mean we can't play around with it. I compare this to the ideology of "Parkour," we used to practice parkour all the time when we were kids, but as we grow up the way we perceive space changes because we become more and more influenced by the norms of society. Realistically, we don't all have the guts to run around and jump over walls on our way to work but we can, for example, use its philosophy when decorating our home.
"It is about overcoming and adapting to mental and emotional obstacles as well as physical barriers.It is about the idea of "human reclamation," a means of reclaiming what it means to be a human being." Of course, this topic can be elaborated on ALOT, and it may even be hard to understand. But it's simply about contradicting the space you are in, which is what i tried to do in Canada and Lebanon, in my own way.
Here are some of my decor inspirations:
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| For the photos i'd like to hang on the wall, I chose this idea. (above) it seems fairly easy to make and would look great with my wooden interiors!all you need is the frame,thread and wooden laundry clips! |
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| I loved this idea of putting your pretty perfumes on a cake plate!! If you like to display them like I do, this looks very elegant and neat! |
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| I will definitely be putting my magazines on display on a wooden ladder, afterall some of them even have my name in them! (left) and the plant pot (right) hanging in a vintage kettle looks lovely |
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| from funky junk interiors the bed i've chosen has the same headboard on which I want to hang jewellery and colorful scarves.. |
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| from The Decorista in the cardboard garbage pile below my building I found a round wooden device used for construction (which there is never a lack of in Dubai) so I had the idea of either giving it a great paint job, or adding a round mirror to the surface! |
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| Since my studio has a high ceiling,I have to figure out ways to make it cozy. I'm making a reading corner next to my bed that looks like the one above and putting a chandelier that hangs low to cut through the open space! |
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| from The Decorista You can find these chairs on the streets in Lebanon, but in Dubai everything is "new" so they're either non existent or cost a fortune. You can get very creative with the simple wood by adding colorful or patterned seating pillows. I'm seriously thinking of getting completely unmatching chairs! |
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| From the Decorista I really like the perfectly cluttered wall (left) and the patterns of the rug and pillows (right)
Start the New Year by redecorating your house; it's a great way to reflect on the one gone by, and the things it taught you about yourself! :)
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