MARK CUTLER STYLE GUIDE: The Simple Gesture

I am happy to say that I lead a somewhat charmed life; it has always been pretty busy, but never hectic to the point of distraction. However, as the birth of my son becomes alarmingly close, I find myself getting totally overwhelmed by never-ending to-do lists and no time to complete any of it. I am sure that a lot of people feel that way a lot of the time—that's why I like to design homes with simplicity in mind. For me, one of the keys to this type of work though, is the “simple gesture”—that one thing in your room that draws your attention and creates the harmony of your design.

In this post, I thought I would show some examples of this idea that I have used in several different projects, and perhaps inspire your next project.

Dining Room (Above)
This was in theory an exciting room to do. A two-story, soaring space with room for 12 to sit and dine. The real challenge was that every time we put anything in the room, it felt like you were sitting at the bottom of a tube. The solution was quite simple, a light fixture, or series of fixtures, large enough to create a “ceiling.” It kept the room dramatic, but made dining a really pleasant experience.

Living Room
This was another interesting challenge. It was a beach house for an old client, who wanted to create a great place for weekends away, but didn’t have a huge budget, so the challenge was to find simple ways to decorate without looking like we were counting pennies. I came across this great site greatbigstuff.com. It has terrific reproductions of everyday items but at a huge scale. They had this seahorse that I fell in love with, and I built the room around it. Unfortunately it is no longer available from them, but they have oodles of other cool things, almost any of which would make a great “simple gesture.”

Master Bedroom
I am a big believer that a bedroom should be a quiet, peaceful retreat, but when I was asked by a client to create a bedroom that was almost empty, I was stumped. To me quiet and empty can be two entirely different things, so I came up with the idea of these soft, billowing sheer canopy bed curtains. They are made out of sheer linen and move with the slightest breath of air. It totally changed the space from an empty void to one of quiet luxury.

Well I hope that this post has inspired you to take another look at your room and see if the addition of a single, simple gesture will change it from the ordinary to the fabulous.

Mark Cutler
Interior Designer,
MarkCutlerDesign.com