Life | Valentina Expressions

Certainly Not A Languid Summer

Summer is winding down. Days are getting shorter. For some reason, my work always seems to get heavier in the summertime. It has been said that Summer is the season that gives us permission to be lazy, not in my case. Clients who want to remodel a home or part of it always start the job in the Summer. They aim to complete the job before the end of the season and before the Fall holidays begin.

I was thinking of all i created during my last trip in the Spring. I made new friends, visited new cities and organized new speaking engagements in Europe, making the trip so much fun. I travel off-season, and I really love being on vacation when the rest of the world is at work. The lines to visit Museums are not long, restaurants are not full and life flows as it should. I get all the attention from service people just as I give attention to my clients in the Summer. While I was engaging in my occupational activities, I found time to paint a striped wall in my living room. The wall is long and tall. It has a high roof pitch on one side. It required the use of a tall ladder. I painted it all freehand while hanging on a ladder most of the time.

The stripes are burgundy and metallic gold. In the photo, staring at the wall, I look as if I am questioning myself: “What have I done?” Although I had never done anything so bold, I was more curious than scared. Paint is paint, easy to redo if the result is not quite the desired one. After I returned the paintings to the wall and the furniture against it, I was pleased more than ever. The gold stripes brought rhythm and light to the wall, and the room now has posh vibes.

After that experience, I moved to paint a boring brown coffee table and changed it into a leopard print. It has a gold metallic base as well. The purple sofa where this coffee table sits looks lively. Metallic gold is a recurrent feature in my home.

Did I stop here? Absolutely not. After a long time, I am painting again. So far, I have completed six canvases. The theme is fantasy flowers painted from my photographs taken in various places. The plan is to paint a series of six landscapes next.

In the meantime, the work in my garden is completed. I made a great improvement to an area between fruit trees that was no longer satisfying me. My gardener, who is not a landscape designer, followed my ideas to the letter. The project brought him satisfaction as it was evolving in front of his eyes. At the end of the work, he told me something surprising. He said he had learned a lot from me over the years. Often, he doubted his skills to build gardens the way I wanted. Still, he did it. I am happy to pass the torch of my knowledge. It pleases me to help a young person who didn’t have the chance to study. Now, he can offer those design ideas to other clients and not just planting or cutting weeds. The bistrot patio is the name I gave to this new area.

I thought by now I knew everything about colors. Then, the opportunity came to study a few courses with a Brazilian color master. I took the chance and I certified as a color therapist and color analyst.
In September, I will be in new courses.

I lived this Summer with intention, energy, and creative flow rather than drifting passively through long, idle days. I will have time to spend languid Summers when I pass to another dimension. Now, I only have time for exploration, vitality and purposeful joy. Ciao.
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com

Copyright © 2025 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant. She is also a color therapist, color analyst and author of 6 published books. Additionally, she is a longtime blogger and a storyteller. Her books offer non-fictional, practical ideas. These ideas can be applied in the home, fashion, cooking, and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble.

The Enchantment of Marble Stairs

My fascination with stairs goes back a long way, they are kind of a fetish for me. Stairs can tell a story, hide a surprise that opens up at the end of a spiral staircase, for instance, or have an aura of mystery. Who was there before me, who kissed on those stairs, what feud happened, or where did they lead?

In Italy, during my young life, I lived in a circular building. The centre was the atrium opened to the sky, where kids played if it didn’t rain. Around the atrium were time-worn stairs leading to each apartment.
On each floor were long balconies overlooking the atrium, so that the children’s parents or relatives could watch them playing while indulging in conversation and a cup of coffee.
As a child, I liked to sit on the floor, on the top stairs without underwear and go down all the stairs one by one, just to feel the cold of the marble and hear the flat sound of my bottom touching the marble. Inevitably, at the bottom of the stairs, I always found an adult who scolded me to make me go to my house and put on my underwear.
I never lived in such a singular building after that time. It was a creative convivial living, an original architecture that allowed socialization, almost like the courtyard scene in the old film by Hitchcock “Rear Window” where everyone could see the happenings in each other apartment, listen to conversations, hear someone’s music, see someone practising dance and know everyone’s business.

Another episode involving stairs that I like to remember pleasantly is my fashion school in Italy. It was a 400-year-old building, first used as the Italian state police headquarters, then became a nunnery for Catholic nuns and ultimately became a Fashion School where I spent four years learning the trade of fashion.

The stairs were bowed just like those in the picture, actually, my depiction is exactly how I remember those stairs. The teachers instructed us to walk on each side of the stairs, not in the centre, being brittle, they could have collapsed easily. Sometimes, we had our arms full of large design rolls, fabric samples, mannequins, cameras and whatnot, it was challenging going up and down four flights of stairs, stepping only on a few inches of space, but we had a certain respect for history and willingness to preserve it.

Over the years there is always someone who comes along with grandiose ideas, a boatload of money, and zero qualms about history who wants to tear down the old thing and build shoeboxes for people who just need to go to sleep. It happened again, the 400-year-old building was demolished and a new office building was built in place.

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, color therapist, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a longtime blogger. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble