During the year, I have the habit of visiting my past clients, just to see how they are doing, asking if they still like the house I designed for them, or if they need anything new from me. I bring them a little gift as a thank you for being my clients, just a little something they can use, such as a box of blank cards, a set of pens, a new year calendar, a set of kitchen towels, a book of stamps, things of this sort. Rarely, I found someone at home, therefore I leave my little gift at the main entrance and then call to tell them there is something from me at the front door waiting to be picked up.
Why do I have to call them and spoil my surprise? A long time ago I realized people enter their home from the back door or the garage, Instead of going through the main entry. Of course, it is easier to park the car in the back to unload grocery, packages, kids, and everything else, then enter the house from there and most likely they end up directly in the kitchen. These people spend a load of money to decorate the main entrance they never see and enjoy.
Landing Main Entrance
The main entrance is used for guests who never park in the backside of the house or in the garage of their friends, they are honored through the front entry. The guests have the privilege to see all the beauty of the front entry, artistic lighting, plants, smell the scent of flowers, enjoy the decorative items whatever might be, stones, metal sculptures, fountains, statues or sounds of chimes. It makes me think guests are reputed more important than the people living there, who pay the mortgage, the property tax, pay for the gardener to keep all the vegetation manicured, pay the window cleaner, and at one point might have paid for a landscaper or a designer to make the front entrance inviting and beautiful. Is it really this way? Are guests more important than you are?
It reminds me of my mom’s house when I lived at home with my parents. My mom kept one room always closed, we called it the salon due to the large size of the room, which hosted the living and dining room together. Nobody was allowed to go in that room, except for cleaning it or when we had guests, which was often, yet us the family, were not allowed to use the room if nothing was happening. Things changed when I moved away, museum rooms did not exist in any of the houses I lived.
One day, I returned to visit my mom, I sat in the salon, I did it on purpose, brought along a magazine, something to eat with drinks, raised my legs on the coffee table and parked my derriere in that room she didn’t want us to use for so many years. She was furious about my belligerence, but I made her understand that as her daughter I was supposed to be more important than her guests, just because she made me. From that moment on I forced her to allow me to eat in her best dishes and drink out of her best glasses, in her company, in that salon she never enjoyed in all the years she had it.
Life is too short not to enjoy the beautiful things we worked for and surrounded ourselves.
Front Yard Display at Main Entrance
I just want to point out that being greeted with the usual mess of the garage (I have seen some horrific garage mess), boxes, dirty laundry, sports equipment, maybe cars, maybe the husband’s mechanical/woodworking machines, Christmas decorations, etc. etc. is not a good vibration, it’s not harmony and it’s not pleasant to come home to.
Picture this: you return home after a long day at work, your boss has been nasty, your kids have done something stupid, perhaps you realize your husband has a sexy secretary. your grandmother became a virgin again or it has been just the wrong day with Mercury retrograde. There is nothing in that garage greeting you with beauty, no nice scent to smell, no vibrant color to uplift your spirit, nothing to make you feel better, but your main entrance has all of that and it is neglected.
After a bad day, try this, enter the home through your well-decorated main entrance, you will hear it saying: “Come in, this is your home and nothing is going to bother you here”. The spirit of your home will take care of you. Do you believe a home has a spirit? I do and I can tell you some pretty stories, but I will leave that for another time.
I am not trying to change the world, people will live as they want, in dirty houses, with a messy garage, in all-white walls, minimalist empty homes, aseptic, lifeless homes, or kitschy decor. I am just trying to make a point, if you spend money for something, whatever it might be, enjoy it now while you are alive, do it for yourself, you are the most important actor of your life’s film.
“My life is a theatre and this is my comedy” ~ I said it.
Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com
Copyright © 2019 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved
Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of five books, all available on
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest published books are ©The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
and ©Naked Lemons – https://amzn.to/33bVRyQ
Valentina Expressions 
Aug 19, 2019 @ 13:44:17
I love the lively, colorful entry photos, Valentina.
While my family never had a museum room, I grew up with that kind of mentality — not being allowed to use things. Always “saving things” for a more important time, and never being important enough just for myself. Made to feel guilty for trying/working to fill more than my most basic needs (filling the wants — not just needs of others, now that was what I should do — but never my own). So I understand very well what you are saying, and I agree with the value of your words.
It’s hard to overcome one’s upbringing. I still don’t put on a pretty outfit or my jewelry when there’s no one to see it. And that erodes my self-image. But I’m working on it. 🙂 Hugs on the wing.
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Aug 19, 2019 @ 17:54:51
I never agreed with that type of mentality of saving things for the best situation or people. I changed my mom, at least one person, and after the resistance of the few days, she really liked it. As far as decorating myself….I am in my office, alone, nobody sees me but I am dressed with lipstick and jewelry. Never discount yourself and never think any less of you, my dear friend. 😀🤗
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