Marcia Sherrill
The Bespoke Home
If there is one thing that we have all learned from the rash of television programs out there it is that your home should be about you.
BY
Marcia Sherrill
PHOTOGRAPHY
Steve Pomberg

If there is one thing that we have all learned from the rash of television programs out there it is that your home should be about you. What our mothers’ generation often failed to see is that no decorator, no matter how famous or laden with yachts for the borrowing should ever erase you from your home. With decorators becoming today’s media stars, it may be hard to resist the impulse to go for a “Jonathan Adler” or “Mario Buatta” look, but please do resist—nothing says you like you! Just a few things to remember:

It’s not business, it’s personal. If you’re like me, you remember the homes, which have moved you. It’s the personalized ones that stand out: the home with shells on every tabletop, on the floors and in the fireplace; the heirloom silver grouped en masse on the coffee table; the walls hung with dozens of Venetian mirrors; the upholstery created from vintage kimonos; or the lamp bases that previously held court as fine wine bottles left over from an important anniversary.

Make your home alive with the idiosyncratic. I have never had an apartment or a home or a store not photographed by some cool editor. Trust me I have never had the big budgets or the precious antiques to warrant such enthusiasm—but I have the will power and the time, and those win out every time. The hands-down winner in my bag o’ tricks? Murals. And you don’t have to do them yourself. Artists are everywhere and more than willing to realize your dream. A St. Bart’s seascape for your teenager’s room? A Cubist pattern in the entryway? A wall of palm fronds a la the Beverly Hills Hotel? C’est possible!

Forget everything the Design World is telling you about color. Find your dream color. Try it out on your front door! Too timid? Try the back door until you get your sea legs, but go wild with a Connaught Blue or a Curry Yellow. It will make you happy every time you leave your home! Yes, purple is acceptable, and if eyebrows are raised, all the better—this is your signature color, and you will damn well use it!

The trick is in the charm. Upon visiting the home recently of a big muckity muck in television, I learned the self-proclaimed neatnik, frustrated with her 3-year-old son’s constant scribblings, had sent him to work on inexpensive drum shades she’d bought from IKEA for the den. And it was positively charming. Set those tiny hands to work on a lampshade—or better yet, china from the local pottery store or on massive stretched canvases. Voila! A Rauschenberg for the upstairs hallway.

Create an identity. Your Grandma was right—it’s chic to have your own monogram. And while the divas among us may shop at the divine Leontine Linens, it is perfectly acceptable to stroll through Hancock fabrics (or the Yellow Pages) and find a home seamstress with an embroidery machine. Go hog wild with a bamboo-themed monogram for your duvet, or have your family monogram grace the back of your sofa, or even your dining room chairs. And if you are bored with your monogram (or between spouses) scare up some old books on crests and emblems or troll through Crane’s Stationery—you just may find that the Napoleonic bee is your next logo!

Find something you cherish, be it a charm our mothers might have sported on their ubiquitous bracelets (Eiffel Tower? Spray roses?) and make that your decorative motif—on anything from cushions to carpets. Yes, artists, especially the young starving kind (check out Piedmont Park’s Art School) will gladly paint canvas, cotton or even silk that you transform into pillows, window treatments … even carpet! My friend “Miss P” recently had Lacey Champion whip her up a rug incorporating absolutely everything she loved. There were roosters and lavender, tiny potted peonies and garlands of ribbons.

So personalize your home with the conviction of Jackie O., who mixed precious antiques with kitschy needlepoint and obvious reproductions just because she liked them, or Vogue’s Diana Vreeland who kept her walls a lacquered Chinese Courtesan Red her entire life—because it was all about Mizz V! It’s called personality! It’s yours!