The rooms that stay with us are rarely the ones where everything matches. They are the eclectic ones - where an antique sits easily beside something modern, where a travel find shares a shelf with an heirloom, and where the whole somehow feels like a person rather than a showroom.
Eclecticism is often mistaken for a lack of discipline. In truth it demands more of it. The secret is an editing eye: a common thread of color, scale, or material that lets disparate pieces speak to one another instead of shouting.
My advice to clients is always the same - buy what you love, and trust that a life's worth of loved things will find its own harmony. A well-made room tells your story. An eclectic one tells it better than any single style ever could.
Originally published in View AZ Highlife Magazine, Feb / Mar 2008.