Kathryn Ireland.

As you know I got to see Kathryn Ireland speak a couple of weeks ago at the Houston Design Center. She was SO great. Down to earth. Humble. Funny. Here are some things I learned from Kathryn...

• She is absolutely in love with her farm in France, so much so she wrote a book about it. She rents it out if you're interested.
• She curses. It's perfectly natural in her talk & doesn't sound as harsh with her accent. We all curse though, you know. But in the uppity, trying to be society world of interior design we pretend to act proper. Kathryn doesn't & it's so great. Completely shocking to the Houston crowd, I loved that. I wonder what Kathryn really thought.
• "Teach clients not to be grim and teach them how to live in their house." This concept is often lost on designers, especially in such a turbulent economy. We go along with clients even if we disagree for fear of losing them as a client. But actually we're there to guide them and show them how not to be grim.
• When starting a project she always starts with a basic color scheme.
• Her 1st client was Steve Martin. Yes THAT Steve Martin. She was quite sure the only direction she could go was down after starting with such a high.
• "We've come to a time when excess is finally over."  This was her most important concept. Now that we can finally breath and relax a little, we should be relieved that we no longer need so much stuff. We need to fill our houses and lives with beautiful useful things. Not just a bunch of stuff to impress others. We need to LIVE in our homes. Design them for ourselves, not for our guests. Learn to live in this endless recession.