Making the House a Home

by Thomas Dill
(Costa Rica)

Single houses, townhouses, apartments, condominiums, mountain cabins, coastal homes, duplexes, and lofts are continually being built by the housing industry. People live in all of these. Someone calls each of them home.

Most people have strong feelings about their homes. They want home to be the most comfortable, attractive, and personal place it can possibly be. Yet how many people can you name who are completely satisfied with their homes? If not, why aren’t they?

Usually, it’s because they haven’t had the benefit of interior decorating skills. It takes special knowledge and training to put together a home that’s highly comfortable, attractive, and personal.

Most people don’t have this knowledge and training. As a result, they may have a crowded living room where they always bump their legs on the coffee table. Their room might not have a comfortable chair and reading light for looking at the evening paper. They have a slightly unattractive color on the walls because they still haven’t managed to choose the right color.

When home doesn’t feel like their home, most people find themselves dissatisfied with their impersonal surroundings. They look around and see all the necessary basic furnishings, but, somehow, it could be anybody’s home. This person may walk up a path identical to the neighbors’ path, and open a door just like the neighbors’ doors. This person has an even greater need for a home interior that’s comfortable, pleasing, and very personal. Achieving this personal essence calls more and more for the trained skills of an interior decorator.

Have you noticed that I’ve been speaking of people’s needs? As a decorating professional, client´s needs should always be foremost in a decorators mind. Starting to determine these needs is always the goal of the very first meeting with a client. Since that meeting is the beginning, that’s exactly where everything starts.

Thomas Dill.