Intention

Intention - The real secret to great interior design (and a meaningful life).

Are you completely lost when thinking about the design of your home?

I want to show you, that here at Catherine Rose Design, as long as you have pure intentions, you can have a gorgeous space!

A beautiful home lives within the imagination of each of us. The power to create is already within you, trust me, I would know!

However I also know from talking to my clients that when you think about the complete design of your space you can end up feeling overwhelmed.

I’m constantly assuring each of my clients that this doesn’t have to be a scary experience. Their only job, and your only job, is to follow the things that you love and give a voice to the creative spirit inside you.

I think the magic has not been shared openly about the design process. Perhaps the design industry is too caught up in its own ego. Maybe not everyone has realized it. But with over a decade of design experience, I know, beyond a doubt, the only deeply beautiful spaces are INTENTIONAL spaces created through the inner desires of my clients.

One of the biggest upsides to creating intentionally is that when you yourself realize that your Intention is the only thing that is important. The stress of the details melts away when you focus on what truly matters!

The only real thing that you need for great design (and a meaningful life) is intention.

So what even is intention?…

Intention means “Done on purpose, or deliberate” action.

Being intentional means that you are fully within your own power and acting from within. In regards to the design of your home, you are holding the reins of your creative power. You tell your designer how you want to feel and have the confidence and trust enough in yourself to allow your designer to translate your desires. Someone who is intentional knows how they want to feel in the end, they know what they know and they are confident in themselves to know and allow someone who understands the details to help them to reach their end goal.

Someone who is unintentional doesn’t know how they want to feel or why they want to feel that way in their environment. In their deep seated insecurity around the design of their home, someone who is unintentional. will start to try and control all of the tiny details thinking that they can force good design, Turning this creative exploration into an often miserable experience for everyone involved.

You cannot force good design. Good design flows freely from good feeling intentions only. Intentions rooted in your own deeper desires.

If you as the client have not done your own homework on how you want to live, who you are and what lights you up BEFORE embarking on a design project, the process most likely will end up being challenging for you.

Good design flows from the big picture down into to the little details only. By making a million little detailed decisions without a deeper anchored goal in mind you will spin yourself in circles.

To me intentionality in design means that each decision has a deeper meaning to YOU. Instead of making design decisions based on the opinions of the world (or your designer), you choose objects and finishes to create a feeling for YOU in your space.

For example lets say you are re-doing your living space. You wish it felt like you were on a beach vacation year round…

Instead of looking up “beach spaces” and recreating the rooms that you see in magazines or online. You instead sit with your own thoughts and imagine those beaches you’ve visited that brought you such peace. Maybe instead of a typical southern California beach, your mind drifts to the serenity of a Balinese coastline you once visited. The smells of jasmine, and bright colors woven through the local handmade textiles. These are the feelings and sensations that you wish to recreate.

Realize that no inspiration can come outside of you, it all begins within, and it begins with your intentions.

“Intentionality is about thinking about and knowing what you want before someone else tells you what you should want.” -me

Intentionality and confidence go hand in hand. You are an autonomous human being who has an inner light that the world needs to see. You should never start a design project (new job, new relationship, new move etc…) unless you have first reflected on what feelings you desire to have and what sort of things light you up!

I have some previously written articles here if you are interested in exploring these thoughts for yourself, I would highly recommend reading or doing some of these activities to help you to get clear on your intentions for your life.

perfect day

design aesthetic

personailty

Time to wake up…

When I think about intentionality I look at the world around me. I feel as though there are way too many people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Trying to achieve that next step in life, striving so hard to be noticed, and on a much deeper level loved for who they are. Lots of our lives seem to be set up for us… go to school, go to college, find the perfect relationship, get married, have kids, make more money on and on and on the goal posts of our lives keep getting pushed out of reach. This story only applies to the lucky few of us too, most people are worried about how they are going to put food on their table or keep a roof over their head. An even smaller group of very select few have ever stopped to think about how they themselves would like their lives to be outside of the expectations that the world imposes on them.

Focusing on their own intentions instead of what the world thinks…

I want in this space, dealing with the frivolity of design, for more people to start engaging with the intentions of their own lives. I think this is the secret to creating a more just and beautiful world for everyone. When people realize the power they have within, even when they start just with their own creativity, people can start to see that they have the magic that we are all searching for within themselves, and that they need to stop looking outside themselves for the bigger answers in life.

Ok so how do I become more intentional in regards to my environment?

Intentionality is the difference between a beautiful room (that anyone can accomplish, at least with the help of a designer) and a meaningfully designed home.

I do realize that Intention doesn’t come easy to everyone because…

Intentionality demands deeper thoughts of you.

It’s the difference between choosing a paint color because you saw it in a trend magazine, or picking a paint color because you have an emotional reaction to it. Choosing it because it evokes feelings within you, and shows off the vibes that you want to create in your environment.

Intentionality demands a true purpose.

Its the difference between choosing a chair because you saw that designer put two of them in her new living room and you need a chair (this has got to be the “best” one right?) and thinking about the experience you want to have in your new library, reading your favorite books by the window, and waiting until you find that perfect vintage chair at your favorite flea market that you can imagine being incredible re-upholstered in some of your mother’s embroidery.

Basically the difference between an intentional and unintentional space starts and ends within you!

You cannot outsource your intention. If you have hired a designer and they have not asked you about your deeper desires and true intentions for your dream life, please run. They are here to recreate their aesthetic for their own ego. They do not have your or your environments best interests at heart.

The link between Intention and Creativity

Without intention you cannot have creativity, without creativity you cannot have intention.

All artistic expression exists because of the energetic interplay of these two concepts.

The meaning of creativity to me is allowing your intention in conjunction with your deeper self to express who you truly are. Creative energy often feels as though it comes from outside of yourself, and it is so true that you cannot make something happen creatively, ever. But I do believe that on the deepest level your creativity is about getting into alignment with who you really are and allowing the best parts of you, the most expanded parts of you to express itself.

I think its the balance between both halves of ourselves. The yin and yang of our nature. The open part of yourself thinks excitedly about how you want to live. Inspiration, colors and thoughts come to you from your deeper desires. Only from this place can you concretely think about your intentions for your life and environment. Your thinking half now has a reason to create in this world creating concrete intentions from your deeper feelings!

By focusing on the fact that you, the client, are on the leading edge of this moment and creativity itself, silly worries of following fleeting trends or finding the perfect paint color for someone else no longer matters (and it never should).

If you go about design (or anything else in life) without leading with your own intentions you will never create a life that you love, plain and simple.

When you understand that its the importance that you place, and the memories and feelings that you have created, your intention, that creates the environment that your soul needs… effortlessly.

When focusing inwards on your own desires you realize that you are the only one that matters especially in your own environment. Heck I would argue that you have a responsibility to the rest of the world to engage with your environment through your unique individuality. How else do you think trends come into being in the first place? Only through people that believe in themselves and the beauty that only they can bring into existence.

If you want to get buried in rules and put your power outside yourself in regards to the design of your home. Understand that that home will never feel right to you and you are at risk for listening to trends that slip away as soon as they show up on the scene.

As a designer I pride myself on being a guide for my clients own aesthetic because I love all of the beauty and magic that individuals create from within themselves. We need more people who are in tune with their inner landscape creating things from within themselves.

I am just here to help with space planning haha!

Let me know if you guys found these thoughts helpful. I would also love to hear how you create intentionally in your interiors if you are up for sharing!

Thank you so much for reading!