I’ve said more than a few times that I’m not inspired by interiors. But I suppose what I meant to say that I’m not inspired to photograph them. Really, all I want to photograph most days are my children’s activities and the beauty of the natural world. However, I’m very much inspired by the function and beauty of interiors and I love to look at beautiful interior spaces and design. But, am I compelled to pick up my camera and take pictures of interiors or my own space? No! And this is because I am most interested in capturing moments, more than beauty. Spaces without action don’t feel like moments to me. Interior home spaces are a retreat from action, as I see it. Our home interior is styled as a place of calm, like a sanctuary away from the busy outside world. At home I need to feel stillness, peace, and calm. As much as I love the bursting natural colour, texture, and busyness of the natural world (as depicted in the majority of the photos I share here and on Instagram) the same is not true for our home.

My ideal home interior is a predominantly white with small touches of colour manifested in:

1. pieces of the natural world (the world of flora: flowers, sticks, branches, pinecones, acorns, leaves, but also stones and shells);
2. useful items that can add colour temporarily to a space (like hanging a beautiful dress or hand spun yarn on a hook on a white wall), and;
3. art, handmade goods and heirlooms.

I hadn’t put much focused thought into what my interior style was until I joined at{mine}, an online social network focused on sharing real home interiors and the stories behind them. I’d always decorated the spaces I inhabited based on intuition, meaning: what made me feel comfortable in the space. But knowing that I was now putting my interior space out into the world, I wanted to sit back and reflect on what thesis our interior space put forward. With Instagram, having a large following, I am inclined to share moments and ideas that I hope will ignite thought, inspire action or create pause; having a large audience I reflect on what good could come from what I share. And so, I took this approach to my at{mine} page.

Now, our home is not entirely in sync with how I would love our home interior to feel, but that’s okay, I’d rather take a slow approach to decorating, and update things to my taste and comfort when updating is needed. Case in point: our home had been freshly painted when we moved in. Ro’s room was alternating bright orange and green walls. Yikes! (She called it her “pumpkin room”, not affectionately). However, we waited six years to repaint it, because environmentally speaking we couldn’t justify painting over perfectly good paint.

So, coming back to my interior’s thesis, I reflected on the spaces in our home that felt right to me, that aligned with my sensibility, and then asked: ‘What do these spaces evoke? What do they look like?’ Well, first, they are white. A white canvas, not to be coloured in physically, but mentally. A blank slate upon which I can daydream because I don’t feel overstimulated visually.

Second, these spaces have small touches of bright colours from flora or useful objects that infuse energy and liveliness. My emphasis on natural objects comes from an interest in bringing nature and natural colour into the home, reminding us of our embeddedness in nature, that we are not separate from nature, but are nature. When it comes to decorating with useful objects, this is me in my ‘minimal mode’. I do not like having things around that are not used (except for art, which serves a different use function, see below). You will not find a knick knack in my home (if the term ‘knick knack’ is not colloquial to you it means: household trinket or ornament). I know that many people are quite the opposite, my husband is one of them. He loves a space jam-packed with things, for him this visual stimulation leads to new connections of ideas, it’s stimulating in a good way. (Don’t worry, I let him clutter up the basement to his heart’s content.) But for me external clutter, clutters my mind. The bad kind of stimulation, over-stimulation.

So, back to useful objects. I like to decorate with useful objects such as clothing with beautiful textiles, hand bags, balls of yarn, copper mugs, and so on. These items add colour to a space, but serve another, more primary purpose in the home. I like this especially because the decor can change easily according to mood and season. With a white canvas background, there are infinite possibilities when you decorate with low cost, dual purpose items.

Finally, art marks our interior space significantly. As I’ve said before, I live in family full of professional and amateur artists. Literally, everyone but me is an artist. Because of our family fortune — that is, being born into a family of artists — we have a lot of beautiful art to hang and display, mostly paintings and illustrations. We also dedicate a good portion of our wall space to display Ro and Sen’s work. Our walls are not covered in art, because I do need white space to calm my mind (I know what you’re thinking: “Danielle, you need to meditate more!” I know, I know). But living in a space filled with art is important to us. Art is beautiful, and beauty in itself is important. But art also has a use function in terms of intellectual stimulation and inspiration. It’s always been important to Matt and me that our children are exposed to art, fine art, public art, all art, and that the children always have access to art materials. Every room in our house has a piece of art hanging, something made within our extended family, that is beautiful and inspiring. Going to a gallery is one thing, an important thing, but more important to me, is seeing the beautiful things that people we know, people we share blood with, made. In this way, the children don’t see art-making as out of reach, they see it as part of their everyday life.

So, all this long-winded intro is a way of saying that I’ve been thinking about our space and what I wanted to share with and inspire in others. You’ll see on my at{mine} page that I’ve shared my approach to interior spaces:

“interiors inspired by minimalism and nature, decorating with useful, beautiful, artful and organic objects.”

Pretty simple, right? But it took a while to get there. What I intend to share with this ‘philosophy’ is a sort of mindful decorating informed by our human connection with nature, our need for beauty and creativity, and conscious of environmental impact. Mindful decorating is slow, conscious, thoughtful. Slow decorating means decorating once. Not every few years to update with trends. It means knowing yourself so that you bring objects into your home that will always bring you joy.   With my philosophy on decorating a little more refined now, I’m excited to be part of the at{mine} community so I can explore how others set up their spaces. As always, I’m primarily interested in what feelings are evoked by a space, more than the stuff that fills them. But for those of you you may like to know where items in others’ homes came from the photos are often tagged with the store source. I would love it if you joined the community or visited my page, it’s free and super easy. Like, easier than signing up for Instagram! And you can join without having to share images, if you are just looking for inspiration or to connect into conversations about interiors.

Visit my at{mine} page: at{danielle chassin} (to see the photos I didn’t share here)

Or, explore the at{mine} community from their homepage

If you are on at{mine} comment below and leave me your user name so that I can follow you back!

I would love to know your thoughts on interior space. How do you approach decorating your interiors?

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