Max Pow Factor

Irwin Weiner -- This week's New York Times and many other publications are focusing our attention on the desire (and therefore, demand) for luxury. The luxury fantasy is getting a lot of attention, and I'm hearing more talk of luxury now that our stock market and the mortgage industry are going through challenging times.

Funny how the old MGM musicals, depicting excessive extravagance, were so popular during the Depression. Luxury takes our minds off of . . . reality? depression? fiscal challenges?

I began my interior design career after the recession at the end of the 1980s. Clients who had redesigned their homes with a post-modern theme earlier in the decade were shocked to hear how worthless their renovations were less than ten years later. Fashion trends sell, but only while that fashion is current. Perhaps this was the reason why traditional design gripped the decorating scene in the 1990s. There was a fear of becoming too trendy and investing poorly in design resources. Personally, I'm still recovering from the sometimes too-traditional Bonfire-of-the-Vanities look with all its tassels, ornate fabrics, and layer-upon-layer of patterns.

I think people were scared that if they would spend money on something too extreme, come the next recession, it wouldn't sell. All I kept hearing was the word resale when it came to families' design decisions.

Based on what I've learned through my years in decorating, and History's knack of repeating itself,  my big question when designing a new interior is: Should I design something safe and expected, or should I go for something more special -- and possibly extreme?

One of the reasons I justified spending more on my own home renovation project, spending more than what its overall investment worth, is because it was a way to express my skills as a designer. To a certain extent, I was willing to use myself as my own design guinea pig. My rural Pennsylvania neighborhood isn't fancy enough to warrant the return on my investment, but I invested nonetheless. And I invested with gusto, giving each part of the construction remodeling, the more-expensive finishes, the custom windows and woodwork, the expensive hardware, and all the other great details that maximum Pow Factor.

My own home project was completed just as the housing market began to slow down and thoughts of reselling the home, buying another one, renovating that project, and reselling it quickly flew out of my new Kolbe and Kolbe custom double-hung windows faster than you can say, "Let's decorate!" 

Now that I'm over that dose of reality, I've settled into the idea that my family and I are here in our newly-remodeled house for the long haul. This weekend we had old and new friends over for a late summer barbecue. I've done the house tour with friends many times, but somehow, yesterday was different. Seeing the look of surprise on their faces when they saw the plastered walls and ceiling in our living room or the Philipe Starck fittings and fixtures and the soaring ceiling in our new master bath as it completely follows the roofline up into the stratosphere is worth it to me. POW! WOW!

Perhaps adding luxury to your home, and reaching high to maximize your home's Pow Factor, doesn't make the most economical sense. It's potential suicide if you want to add a new $500,000 masterpiece swimming pool thinking it's going to be your best resale decision. But if you want luxury in your life, if you're a born-again Esther Williams or Mark Spitz, and if you plan on building great family memories around the best damn pool in the Universe, then go ahead -- with my blessing -- and spend to the max for your heart's desire. If you love the Pow Factor and the way something over the top makes you, your family, and your friends and neighbors feel about your home, then it's a great investment. Throw the book out on reselling your home and focus on enjoying where you live.

Flipping is for pancakes.

Crashing Bore

Irwin Weiner -- The jitters are back! The stock market took a dive due to risky mortgage loan businesses, and I'm sitting by the phone waiting for clients to call about canceling orders or postponing indefinitely their plans for construction.

The inevitable attempt to transform clients' plain spaces into rich, luxurious, and expensive interiors without spending a fortune is my ever-elusive goal. With the stock market dipping disastrously this week, the goal posts have been moved a bit further back.

With the skidding fortunes of the stock market, it feels good to complain about my design pet peeves. When you decorate an interior, you need to spend money. When you want a great interior, you need to spend a great amount of money. Don't scrimp and expect miracles. If you want a Bentley result, don't scale your budget back to a Chevy level.

Companies like Crate and Barrel and Mitchell Gold are clever at interpreting good design at reduced prices. Theirs is furniture for the masses, albeit mass with class. This is not too different from buying a Prada-style dress from H&M. You're not really buying a knock-off, but you're not really on the cutting edge of design either.

I refuse to sell a room of furniture to a client where everything can be identified as coming from a commercial source. "That's from Pottery Barn. I know that chair's from Crate & Barrel." And so on. In high-end interior decorating, there should be about 4 or 5 memorable and outstanding items in any room's interior, items that defy commercial classification. If you have "substantial" art, striking architecture like a large room with big windows, unusual antiques, and exotic fabrics, you can get away with complementing these items with design features that are quite mediocre.

The converse applies: Having a room with everything totally over the top and exceptional is pure overkill. When I'm in a room like that, I get museum fatigue.

Refining the rule is quite easy. Like an exquisite model in jeans and a T-shirt, a room would look just fine with a Picasso hanging above a Pottery Barn sofa. Come to think of it, that sounds quite chic!

So back to the stock market jitters. There's always been talk of buying stocks for the long term. Can't my clients buy furniture and art the same way, and buy/invest in exciting, stylish, cutting-edge furniture and not get tired of it?

We've become so fashion- and consumer-oriented that it's standard to get rid of Art Deco in favor of Mid-Century. In the past, clients purchased a classic, but boring Georgian piece with the idea that it would increase in value and become an heirloom. It's like they're buying a classic trench coat. It's a very safe purchase, but the style and design is not cutting edge, and many clients tire of it after a few years.

It's hard for us to accept living with a piece of furniture for very long because we have such short attention spans. In my ideal world, I would decree that investing in high-end furniture is married to great style.

How can my ideal world come about? It's difficult to achieve, particularly in the wake of the stock market jitters. But here are the steps you can take and this decorator's sage advice to consider:

• You should always spend more than you think you can afford. I've seen people regret that they didn't go the extra mile to make an extraordinary design purchase.
• Don't buy impulsively. Be sure, but let good style be your guide (and hopefully you have a great decorator).
• Buy something unusual. You will get bored with boring pieces.
• Think about scale when you're making design purchases. Here's an example: squeezing a large, but very good painting into a small dining alcove is heaven.
• The large auction houses like Christies and Sotheby's are excellent places to research great purchases.
• Websites like www.1stdibs.com are good resources for designer furniture and antiques.

Screw the stock market jitters. It's time to spend!

Have you made a high-end decorating purchase lately? Post me about it . . . .