WHEN MOVING MEANS BRINGING HOME WITH YOU

Interior Redesign, as a concept, comes in many forms. Reusing and repurposing furniture and decor is particularly helpful when moving from one home to another. I love flexing my “decorator” muscle helping clients plan to reuse and repurpose their current furniture and decor in a new home. Creating a beautiful new home doesn’t mean buying a house full of new things.

Recently, I had the pleasure of helping an awesome couple make a pretty significant move: from a large home in the Wynstone community of North Barrington to a charming, lakefront home in Crystal Lake built in 1922. Two very different homes, two very different architectural personalities, and one very important challenge: how do we make the furniture and decor they already loved work in a completely new environment?

The clients weren’t looking to start from scratch. In fact, they had plenty of furniture they cherished, artwork they loved, and accessories that had become part of the visual story of their family. What they needed was help deciding what should make the move, where everything should go, and how to make it all feel intentional in its new surroundings.

A Few Messy Updates…

One of the best opportunities for some updates during a move is the window after closing, but before move-in, when rooms are completely empty. We took advantage of this time to tackle a few messy projects like refinishing some floors, removing wallpaper, patching walls and giving most of the rooms a fresh coat of paint which you’ll see in some of the After pics (below).

The Great Furniture Puzzle

Moving from a more traditional, modern home with larger spaces into an older home with spaces made for a different time requires a little strategy. Of course, you can mimic things that work in the old home. But, it’s not as simple as recreating the floor plan from the previous house and hope for the best.

After lengthy consultations with my client, the furniture was delivered and placed in the rooms we thought made the most sense. After that, my assistant and I spent two full days perfecting the furniture placement by rearranging, reconsidering, and letting the home ‘tell us’ what it wanted.

It’s not rocket science and yet, that process matters!!!

We carefully considered the scale of each piece, how the rooms would be used, traffic flow, sight lines, architectural details and, of course, which pieces were worth keeping. The goal wasn’t simply to find a place for everything. The goal was to make the furniture feel as though it belonged in this house, now. And isn’t that what it’s all about!

A piece of furniture can technically fit in a room and still look completely wrong. The right placement, however, can make an existing piece suddenly look like it was meant for that space all along.

Then, the Fun Part…

Once we had the furniture where it needed (and wanted) to be, we started layering in the artwork and accessories from the previous home. As always, this is where the transformation really started to happen.

Rather than putting everything back exactly where it had been, we looked at the collections with fresh eyes. Artwork that had hung in one room was given a new home. Accessories were grouped differently. Pieces that had previously been part of a larger arrangement became focal points on their own. Some items were used in completely different ways than they had been in the Wynstone house and some weren’t needed at all.

And suddenly, something wonderful happened. The new house started to feel familiar. Not because it looked like the old house. It didn’t. The architecture was different. The scale was different. The rooms were different. Even the way the furniture interacted with the windows and views was different. But the things that mattered most to the clients were still there.

Their artwork was on the walls. Their favorite furnishings were surrounding them. Their accessories were telling the same story, just in a new chapter. And that made the transition feel almost instantaneous.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Making a House Feel Like Your Home

There is something incredibly powerful about walking into a new-to-you house and immediately feeling at home, seeing pieces that you’ve lived with and loved for years.

But when the furniture starts going in and the artwork goes up, the unfamiliar begins to disappear. That’s one of the reasons I encourage clients to reuse the things they love whenever possible. Your home isn’t supposed to look like a furniture showroom. It’s supposed to be a reflection of you.

The kitchen table where you’ve celebrated birthdays and holidays. The chairs you’ve had forever. The artwork you’ve collected over the years. The accessories that remind you of places you’ve traveled or people you love. Those things carry something a brand-new sofa and a room full of freshly purchased accessories simply can’t replicate: history.

A New House Doesn’t Have to Mean a New You

One of the biggest misconceptions about moving is that a new house requires an entirely new decorating scheme. It doesn’t. Sometimes the best design solution is to take what you already own and look at it differently.

A move gives you an opportunity to edit. It gives you a chance to decide what you really love, what still works, what can be repurposed and what has simply been taking up space because you’ve always had a place for it. And sometimes, the things that make the cut are exactly the things that make the new house feel like home.

In this case, we weren’t trying to recreate the clients previous home in their new house. We were creating something new, while bringing along the pieces that made their previous home theirs. The result felt collected rather than purchased. Personal rather than staged. And, most importantly, comfortable.

Because at the end of the day, good interior design isn’t always about what’s new. Sometimes it’s about taking the things you already love, giving them a fresh perspective, and letting them tell their story somewhere new. And there is something pretty special about discovering that home isn’t necessarily the place you leave behind. Sometimes, you can simply pack it up and bring it with you.

The Before & After pics speak for themselves. Take a look: