Recently I had the privilege of visiting a client’s home to offer some suggestions for Redesign. Redesign is the art of staging for living – using many of the items you already have to highlight the best features of your home.

The whole point is to get the most out of your home and your own belongings, the things you’ve lovingly collected over time. Redesign is a chance to play curator.

So, my client. Adam is a totally charming guy – huge heart, playful personality, great wit – a dream client! After chatting casually it sounds like he already has LOTS of plans for his place. Knowing he’s a very handy dude, I‘m excited to hear his plans and offer my perspective too.

The house is a late 70’s starter home: one of those wave-of-the-future (at the time) four level splits with vaulted ceilings, skylights, & one seriously amazing clerestory window in the foyer.

Adam and I are on a “Vision Session” – meant to clarify his current plans and uncover the aesthetic that will tie together all the reno plans. Good times, and also a very good idea before embarking on any project.

I love helping people love their homes more. Sometimes that happens as we’re staging a home for sale – and suddenly the seller isn’t in such a rush to go anywhere! Ideally it happens with every Redesign client. Together we dream up the best possibilities for the property itself, aligned with the homeowners’ tastes. If the homeowner isn’t thrilled with the end result – I haven’t done my job!

For Adam, it’s the perfect moment to make his home his own. Shortly after moving in, he adopted two roommates to help with the mortgage. The result is that the entire lower floor (one of the largest open spaces in the house) turned into something out of Hoarders! Both roomies are moving on. For a month or two the place is Adam’s, all Adam’s.

It’s a great chance to press RESET. Besides the roomies moving, his roof is about to be replaced due to major hail damage. He’s losing two leaky skylights in the great room. There are paint colours to choose and a ceiling treatment to work out, to resolve the patchwork when the skylights go.

To me, the most noticeable thing about Adam’s place is the lack of art. In some 1500 square feet, I count two pieces. There’s a sizeable jazz-inspired piece in the stairwell – a great focal point upon entering the house. And there’s a large graffiti-inspired piece in the great room. Both pieces tell me, this is one cool cat.

Once Adam is comfortable with the fact that I’m not going to tell him to paint everything beige (he prefers vivid orange, which we plan for an accent wall) – he brings out the pièce de resistance: a skateboard. With some of the hardware removed. But not all. And a very, very colourful paint job on the underside. Rad!

“Any idea where I could hang this?” he asks. “I used to have it as a coat hook at the back door when I lived with my ex. I’ve thought about putting it up here, but I’m not sure where it fits.”

There isn’t a lot of wall in the foyer, and the piece itself is just 3-D enough that I can already imagine the bruises forming on the shoulders of clumsy guests.

“I don’t think it will work in the entry,” I say. “But you don’t necessarily have to use it as a coat hook. This is art! You can put it anywhere. You know how we were just lamenting that you have no art? You have art, this is art!”

Adam lights up. “You don’t think it’s too … man-cave? Because I can just hear my mom say it’s not very mature. Or it’s not very nice to look at …”

“I think it’s great. It’s part of who you are. It’s really artfully done. It’s creative, it’s cool, it’s totally YOU. If you love it, show it off!”

“OK well in that case – I have two of them.”

Hah! Two is even better. Designers love repetition.

Once we establish that skateboards count as art, we start to talk comics. Adam is a bit of a collector (just the right amount of obsessed) and is himself a sketch artist. As we talk, I encourage him to frame the things he loves, maybe even some of the things he’s drawn. He has plenty of blank walls to choose from – why not do an installation of comics in matching frames, triangulated up the angled vault of the dining room wall?

This is downright revolutionary.

It prompts the next great idea – one that’s been lingering in the back of Adam’s mind for awhile. He had done a pretty intense sketch of the one of his all-time fave heroes, and he wants to blow it up – like 5 feet tall – and put THAT in the entry stairwell.

“Definitely!! That would be amazing! What a conversation piece! What a way to invite people into your home, with YOUR art!!”

Here’s a really lovely guy, and a genuine artist in his own right, stifled by convention when it comes to décor. I tell him that if his mom freaks when she sees the place, he can blame his redesigner (me). You know designers, they’re always suggesting the most outlandish things.

I was back recently and Adam is loving his home. A home that reflects his tastes, his talents, where he’s surrounded by things he loves. It’s going to be one slick gallery when he’s done, too.

(Note: if you plan to hang multiple pieces in a space as Adam did, make sure you start at the top and measure carefully! While this still looks AWESOME, my original vision was to have the pieces from the top down in rows of 3, then 4, then 5.)

Staging for sale is one thing. Most of us have heard, it’s about merchandising the property to appeal to the widest number of buyers. It involves making homes “showhome-beautiful”. It’s seriously fun, and there is definitely a craft to it.

But Redesign – now that’s an art. And art is in the eye of the beholder.

Let your inner artist loose. Contact Jessica at Fresh Moves.