D(n)WR

 Design Within Reach.   With those prices? Design (not) within reach, that's more like it.

(One of these days, my love)

Let's face it, interior design is a luxury, and luxury isn't exactly on the tip of the American tongue these days.  These times of financial struggle have touched every American home, every type of trade and business, every person.

 

As a young designer, I flip through the pages of my Interior Design Magazine (I've had to cut down to just 1 publication due to the cost of these glossy bound sources of inspiration) to find my macro inspiration.  Dream homes, hotels I will never stay in, restaurants I will never eat in, retail stores I will never be a customer of, they are all in those magazines.  But what about the tangible aspects of design?  How are real people living?  For that, I have my design blogs.  There has been a movement over the past 5 years of elevated DIY.  Not the DIY you see on HGTV, but creative people with creative ideas trying to make it work in the reality of the present day.  People are going out there and re-purposing, restoring, and renovating like I've never seen before. What used to be labeled as eclectic and off-beat is now becoming a standard, it's becoming main stream!  People are leaving retail and the mass produced behind and treasure hunting.

You know that saying "My eyes were bigger than my stomach"?  Like Carrie Bradshaw, a la Sex and the City, and her infamous/financially destructive obsession with $600 shoes, my eyes are bigger than my wallet.  Is this due to my age?  My design education?  My amazing sense of style? (Yes, to all of the above to be quite honest.)  So instead of buying something that is "good enough" I wait.  I wait until I find something that is unique and special and I make it my own.  Yes, this truly incredible one-of-a-kind piece is probably sitting next to my Ikea dresser, but hey, a girl has to live.

I recently read an article in the New York Times that I thought summed it up poetically and accurately.  Although I am not a fan of the excess and sometimes cluttered design philosophy, I think it is pretty spot on describing the current trend that I speak of. 

A list of my favorite design blogs:
Design*Sponge
Apartment Therapy
Design-Milk
The Selby (mentioned in NY Times Article, yay!)
Dezeen