The Anti-Renovation Fall Is Coming

All images by Boz Gagovski

For a long time, we’ve been told that the best rooms start with good bones. Original mouldings. Old floors. Arched doorways. Built-ins. High ceilings. The kind of architectural details that make an empty room look interesting before you’ve put a single thing inside it.

But what if your house has none of that?

Most houses don’t. Most of us are working with drywall, standard ceilings, builder-grade doors and rooms that weren’t blessed with 100-year-old millwork. And somewhere along the way, we became convinced that the solution was to renovate our way into character.

Add the panelling. Build the arch. Limewash the wall. Replace the fireplace. Rip out the kitchen. Then, apparently, we can start decorating.

This fall, we’re interested in something else.

Because some of the best rooms we know aren’t architecturally extraordinary at all. They’re filled with extraordinary things.

A huge old mirror leaning against an otherwise boring wall. A sculptural lamp that completely changes a corner. An antique cabinet with a shape you could never find new. A strange ceramic piece on a simple table. An enormous painting. A beautiful chair that has absolutely no business being where it is.

These pieces don’t just decorate a room. They give it structure, scale, history and a focal point.

The objects become the architecture.

And suddenly, that plain drywall isn’t really a problem anymore.

As we head into fall, we’re going to be talking a lot more about this idea: creating homes with character without constantly changing the homes themselves. Less construction. Less chasing whatever architectural treatment is currently all over your feed. More collecting, layering and finding the one thing weird enough, beautiful enough or substantial enough to make a room feel like something.

We’re calling it The Anti-Renovation Fall.

No pumpkins required.

This fall, don’t renovate the room.

Give it something worth looking at.

-Juliette