Lauri’s Blog:

Washington D.C. feels so civilized, and not only because of its impressive limestone government buildings or its diverse architectural delights. It looks as though it has been planned most thoughtfully for the 21st century  (I guess if they were going to get it right, the nation’s capitol would be the most appropriate place to do it).

As a professional, I was struck by how consciously, carefully and considerately everything has been designed: The streets are wide and open, even in busy areas; there are majestic trees lining the streets as well as landscaped gardens all over. Stop signs have digital displays so that pedestrians know how many seconds they have left to cross safely; the Metro stations also have electronic boards informing passengers of when the next subway trains will be arriving, not to mention beautifully designed stations – if a subway station could be beautiful - with rows of lights next to each track that turn red and caution passengers to step back when a train is coming (are you listening, Mayor Bloomberg?)

And when I saw this sign, I knew why this particular metropolis made me feel right at home.

Many moons ago, when my husband and I were getting married and merging households, I was the one who hesitated when it came time to clean things out and get rid of stuff: Old birthday cards, handbags, and books were kept instead of being sold, tossed or donated. Not Joe. His philosophy was, and is, “when in doubt, throw it out.” (His mom is like that, too, so I know where he gets it from.) But, not me. I’d ponder every piece: Should I or shouldn’t I? Will I or won’t I use it? But, thanks to hubby, over the years I’ve reformed and now that it’s fall and time to jump in and clear out clothing, shoes, paperwork, and even a few pieces of furniture, I have a much better attitude about living with less.

Two other occurrences strongly influenced my inclination to let go of things: 1) Seeing some of my clients’ homes that had unbelievable clutter - like the people you’ve seen on Oprah who have stuff that goes from floor to ceiling, with a narrow path across the room - jeepers! 2) Working with so many people who downsized and then I, literally, wrote the book, Downsizing Your Home With Style: Living Well In A Smaller Space. How could I possibly be a hypocrite and not take my own advice? Plus, it is very bad Feng Shui to have a lot of clutter, and who wants that?

So, I am actually looking forward to cleaning out, then donating, selling and giving away the things that I haven’t been using, over the next few weeks. It will feel great and, hopefully, other people will enjoy and make good use of the stuff. But they are not getting my old birthday cards.

Last week I had dinner with my aunt and uncle. She is a PhD, who retired from teaching at a major university two years ago and he is an executive who still travels around the world for business meetings, hesitant to give up his work. After speaking with them that evening, it seemed apparent that gender might be affecting their view of retirement.

My aunt is writing her memoir, volunteering as docent at a museum and taking courses that interest her. She has a positive perspective on retirement and welcomes the free time she has now, to explore new paths.  Conversely, my uncle is only focused on his work; he finds it hard to imagine himself without a schedule that is packed with meetings and negotiations. Although he goes to the opera regularly with my aunt, and has other interests, to him retirement doesn’t seem to have much allure.

Do men place so much emphasis on work, throughout their lives, that they feel their careers define them? Are their identities completely entwined in their professional life, making it more difficult to relinquish their careers when it’s time to consider retirement? Are women better able to break free of their work life when they get older because most are accustomed to having dual occupations, as mothers and career women? Or are women simply more flexible than men? What is your opinion?

On Wednesday, my client and I spent a bit of time together in taxicabs as we went from place to place that day, shopping for furnishings for her home. As we rode cross-town to look for some lighting, she told me about her very young daughter who would not cooperate when she didn’t get her way. We talked about parenting and the importance of maintaining a firm and unemotional demeanor, in order to avoid power struggles and, also, the benefit of putting a misbehaving child in a corner for a time-out.

Time-outs saved the day for me when my daughter, Tracy, was small. Whenever she’d put up a fuss, all I had to do was imply that she was going to be put in the corner and, presto, what a well-behaved girl she’d become! It took strength to say “no” to her at first but, as she grew up and understood that she had choices, she also realized she had limitations and that made both of us a lot happier.

Years have gone by - she is now a grown woman who jokes and smiles a lot - and these days she and I offer each other suggestions for healthy ways of accepting life’s ups and downs, as they come along, since things never seem to run in a straight line.

For me, it always goes back to making choices: I can choose to be upset or I can choose not to waste my time aggravating myself. Since I always have that choice, I will always strive to choose the latter and have a happy day. Life is too short to spend time sitting in the corner.

I’m honored to be invited back to The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on September 13th, this time to speak about How To Downsize Your Home With Style, a topic dear to my heart.  And, no, I will not be discussing Candy Spellings move from her 56,500-square-foot French chateau-style home in Los Angeles with its wine-tasting room, bowling alley, silver room, china room and gift-wrapping room (darn, I could really use one of those!) to a modest duplex penthouse of only 16,500 square-feet with just 4,000 square-feet for the master bedroom. Poor woman. I guess the economy is affecting everyone these days.

Here are a few interesting statistics that confirm the growing trend in downsizing:

1)  Families have changed dramatically. Between 1970 and 2000, the percentage of nuclear families - married couples with children - declined from 40% of households to 24%, according to the Census Bureau. And childless families are expected to increase.

2) In a February survey of potential home buyers by NAHB, 60% said they would rather have a smaller house with more amenities than the other way around.

3) A study released in May by the online house-pricing service Zillow.com found that less expensive houses appreciated more than costlier top-tier and presumably larger homes over the past five years - 10.1% versus 5.4%, respectively.

4) In the latest AIA Home Design Trends Survey, respondents were more than twice as likely to report a decline in home sizes than a rise in home sizes (33.5 percent vs. 15.5 percent).

5) “Clearly the baby boomer demographic is making powerful waves across all areas of North American culture,” says Gary Hockey, president of Canadian Operations, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, LLC. “Many empty nesters are no longer content to remain in the same home from marriage to retirement, and our brokers are seeing this impact in their local markets. There’s a clear spike from boomers downsizing or changing homes once children are out of the house and we expect this trend to grow over the next few years.”

Are you thinking about downsizing your home or have you already done so?

“Do what you can with what you have where you are.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

When we opened for business, lots of people were surprised to hear about our unusual concept of reusing, recycling and redecorating with existing furnishings. It was 1981 and our affordable approach, “one day decorating and redesign,” was a novel idea. Back then, without realizing there would be a global climate crisis ahead, we at Use What You Have began encouraging our clients from the East Coast to the West Coast to think “green” by redecorating with what they already owned.  Our methods conserved trees, lowered carbon emissions and preserved resources, unlike conventional interior designers who encouraged expensive new purchases which depleted the earth’s natural elements. It also saved folks a lot of money.

Cut to the present: Today, twenty-seven years later, our country is, of course, confronted by a dire situation and all of us at Use What You Have are working harder than ever to help educate and encourage our clients about the simple ways they can protect and conserve the raw materials on our over-taxed planet that have been taken for granted.

Just in case you haven’t started, here are a few of those feel-good-about-what-you-are-doing tips:

• Shut off the lights in every room that is unoccupied.
• Do not run water, unnecessarily, when brushing teeth, shaving, showering, or at any other time.
• Take showers instead of baths.
• Recycle all newspapers, magazines, cardboard, glass, cans, and plastic bottles.
• Wash only full loads of laundry. Do not use dryer unless fully loaded.
And, if possible, line dry clothing (for that wonderful fresh fragrance).
• Use dishwasher when full only. Lock it each night; continue filling, until ready.
• Be sure all new appliances are rated “Energy Star.”
• Buy recycled paper products. Use “select-a-size” paper towels and not full size
toweling (saves tons of paper!). Use only plain white, not patterned or colored
paper goods.
• Keep A/C and heating use to a minimum. Open the windows; enjoy fresh air more.
• Be sure to close the fridge door as quickly as possible whenever it has been opened.
• Keep dry cleaning to a minimum.
• Bike and walk instead of driving, whenever possible.

I’m a list maker (isn’t everybody?) and the sort of person who usually must finish my tasks before I can take it easy. The good news is that I accomplish a lot on most days; the bad news is that I don’t relax enough. Fortunately, my husband, Joe, and I work together and he knows when to stop.

Yesterday was an unusually beautiful day in New York: low humidity, bright sunshine and relative quiet because it is the end of August and a lot of people are out of town. As I was working, Joe came into my office and said, “Let’s go for a jog in Central Park and then have an early dinner, it’ll do us both good.” I knew he was right but my list was not complete and I started to decline. Then I remembered a saying I’d heard, “Everybody dies with a full in-box:” It never ends. So, instead, I listened to my smart husband and my heart and left the office early, with my list still unfinished. I made the choice to savor the day with my favorite person.

After we changed into our workout gear, Joe and I walked into Central Park and talked about how important it is to make choices that will allow us to feel as good as possible - every day - since life is short and we never know when it will end.

Joe, wise man, offered an anecdote about a gentleman who had always been afraid of flying: Although the fellow wanted to travel and experience different cultures, his phobia held him back. Finally, one day, a business trip forced him to board an airplane and he found himself sitting next to a Native American. The Native American, seeing how agitated he was, asked the man if he was all right. The fearful flier admitted that he was terrified. The Native American pointed to the window and the clear sky above and said, “What happens is out of our control, sir, but don’t be afraid. Today is not a bad day: It is a beautiful day to die.” The man looked at the sky and at his smiling seatmate and suddenly realized that his traveling companion was right. The Native American had provided him with a totally different and optimistic perspective, one that - with an adjustment - would allow him to live much more fully. And, right there, he made the decision to embrace that positive mindset.

I hope that you, too, when given the choice, will also choose what makes you happiest, today and all days. No matter how long your list.

The scene: An interior redesign consultation (accompanied by decorator trainees).

The clients:  A couple at odds with the way their home was decorated. The wife, pregnant and not working, liked traditional furnishings and was very unhappy with the way the small temporary rental looked with their over-sized furniture brought from their last, much bigger home. The husband, a physician, who preferred modern furnishings did not agree with the need for professional decorating help; he did not want to part with his too-big pieces nor put them in storage.

I sided with the wife because the apartment was completely over-crowded, uncomfortable and did not look good. It had terrible Feng Shui.

Here’s what happened: I offered solutions that would solve most of their problems but the husband would hear none of it. The wife liked my ideas a lot so I tried to reason with her mate. He told me that although I thought he was “just a doctor,” he actually knew a lot about decorating. I decided not to tell him how much I knew about medicine. His wife took me aside and said that she was very sorry and totally mortified by his rude behavior but I assured her that it was not a deterrent (on pages 72-73 in Use What You Have Decorating the issue of some men - okay, many men - and their perspective on decorating is addressed).

I kept my cool even though the doctor tried to goad me into arguing with him (no, I will not divulge the gory details but I will tell you the trainees jumped in to defend me, bless them). After a  “discussion” I got him to agree to the living room and dining room rearrangement and, if he didn’t like it, we would put everything back the way it was, originally. I stipulated that we would only return the pieces after we finished the master bedroom so that he would have sufficient time to adjust to the new arrangement and that he and his wife would, hopefully, rent a storage room for the unused baby grand piano, big glass dining tabletop and several other pieces, until they moved into a house.

The trainees and I proceeded to rearrange both rooms and they looked 100% better. Everything seemed more open, elegant and comfortable. The wife was thrilled. I didn’t ask the husband what he thought. Then the trainees, she and I went to work on the master bedroom. When we finished it looked and functioned better, too. The wife called her husband in to take a peak at everything. As the doctor looked around, he nodded, and shook the decorator’s hand. And then he apologized.

This week I’ve been teaching a class of decorator trainees from all over the U.S., Canada and one lovely lady from Costa Rica. Great group. And, as always, it’s been fun to meet and train people who love interior decorating and who are as passionate about it as I am.

On Tuesday we worked with a woman who had moved into a new coop in New York City a couple of months ago. Although she’s a real original who has marvelous taste that is reflected in her furnishings, art and first-edition books, she was having a hard time making all of the things she’d collected over the years work well in her new space. Each of her treasures had a story and, as we rearranged them, she told us about their provenance - her anecdotes were fascinating.

When we finished, she was very excited by the results and said she could not wait to implement the plan we’d given her for further upgrades. She said that what made the process especially compelling for her was seeing her things displayed in ways she would never have imagined. Her home looked much more pulled together and airy and it felt a lot more comfortable.

So, the client was happy and the trainees were happy to see what they’d accomplished. And me? I just love my work.

Years ago, my husband, Joe, sang the theme song for the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger weight-lifting movie, Pumping Iron, but now, when we hear “pump it up,” we are reminded of how expensive gas has become and how that reality is affecting our lives.

It was the first thing my client, Mrs.Dawson, pointed out last Wednesday when I arrived at her house. “You have no idea how much money I’ve wasted on gasoline over the past year. It’s so upsetting!” She then explained that she has been driving to stores, making purchases, returning home with the pieces, finding that they didn’t work, and then driving back to the stores to return everything; she had done this over and over again. All the back and forth had left her frustrated and, although she has elegant taste and a good eye for design, Mrs. Dawson realized she needed professional decorating help. That’s when she called my office.

Ironically, many of the solutions to her problems were already right there in her home and they required little, if any, new investment. Without turning on her ignition or even spending money online for purchases she was unsure about, all she’d needed to do was remedy several of the 10 Most Common Decorating Mistakes.

So we got to work and in little more than 3 hours we had transformed her entry area, living room and dining room into more balanced, peaceful feeling spaces. When we finished she was surprised and happy to see that a number of things she had been ready to part with had been utilized in completely different ways so that they now looked better and functioned more effectively. (To be honest, whenever I see the results I’m still surprised!)

Therefore, before you go shopping for anything, look around and check to see if you have made any of the 10 Most Common Mistakes, and then correct them. Aside from the aesthetic, functional and monetary benefits you’ll receive, by using what you have, correctly, you’ll save at the pump, too.