Design Schizophrenia

Design Schizophrenia

I have decided I have a problem. Probably not an actual diagnosable mental illness, as the blog title might suggest, but I think I suffer from Design Schizophrenia.

Syon House

I like quite opposite design styles. I've always loved decoration and embellishment in design.... old houses with their elaborate plaster cornices and ceiling roses, stately homes in other countries with their swags of Grinling Gibbons fruit in between elaborate plaster pilasters. I like classical proportions (which I think have been perfected over time to be perfectly in synch with the human proportions), and classical detailing.

Grinling Gibbons carving via Pinterest

I also like a modernist, minimalist Architectural style. Partly this has been trained into me through my years of study, partly this is something that I'm drawn too for the purity and simplicity, that sense of quietness that it can give. I quite like John Pawson's Architectural designs for instance, and he is really at the pointy end of minimalism, although I'm not sure that I could actually live with it for too long. I'd start sneaking in pretty things that took my eye, magpie like, and they'd inevitably ruin his purity of space.

via

via

So what has happened with this problem is that it has caused me much angst with my kitchen design. Not all the problems with the kitchen design have been caused by Mr AV and his niggly little design changes. Some of the reluctance on my part to finish the damn thing off is that I have been mulling over what actual design style I will embrace.

You see, I like this

And also this

And they are quite different.

I think that part of my wavering on it has been caused by two things. One, I'm always hesitant to embrace timber veneer colours in a kitchen, as they are fashionable, and can look absolutely dreadful in ten years time, and this is what I'd be looking at for a very simple, modernist style kitchen due to the flooring choice. But I'm also hesitant of committing to a classical design style that is somewhat safe. I do want to push myself to produce something interesting, but that doesn't date. I think I've probably set the bar too high, really.

So, the deadline is looming for the completion of the drawings. It's being forced upon me by the simple fact that unless I commit to something, I'll end up with nothing. And frankly, I really don't want to use my existing kitchen for one second later than I have to.

So I've become nearly certifiable over this... and really, how ridiculous! Time to let the design guru make a decision for me (Mr AV, with his new found confidence in expressing his opinion on all sorts of design related matters I thought he'd have no opinion on...). Wish me luck.

all kitchen images via my Pinterest Kitchen boards

Original article and pictures take adelaidevilla.blogspot.com.au site