Live Artfully by Design – According to Lilu

Live Artfully

To kick off this week's blog about living artfully, a quote I find inspiring and consistently relevant. Among our clients here at Lilu, there seems to be a large consensus that living artfully is the only way to live.
"Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum."
-Ansel Adams
Reflecting that, we have a whole category in our portfolio entitled "Live Artfully" - which you can view here.
We've already written about some of our other core values as a firm that are shared among our clients. You can read the blog post on creating joy at home here, and the one on reinventing yourself through your interior design here!
Pursuing your passions in life and expressing those passions in your home allows you to surround yourself with inspiration and live artfully. This week, we put together a list of some common passions our clients share, and how the interiors we create for them allow them to live artfully in accordance with their values.

Art Collection and Creative Expression

Predictably, those who value living artfully tend to surround themselves with art. We have helped many of our clients incorporate their local or original art collections gorgeously into their interiors.
Whether living artfully means that you collect art of your favorite artists or friends, or that you create and display your own artistic creations, adding art to your life in this way is enriching.

Love of Travel

Another way to live artfully is to honor your love of travel - a passion that many of our clients share.
Our first example of this aspect of living artfully is inspired by our client's love of traveling to tropical and oceanside locations. The color palette, commissioned art, and patterns of fabrics used for the pillows all pay homage to their participation in the art of travel.
Our next artfully living interior is from the home of clients who are world travelers. In this design, we created spots to display items picked up on their travels from all over the world, but in an urban environment. The juxtaposition between the worldly objects and clean-lined, modern interior design creates a perfectly artful balance for our clients.

Cooking as a Passion

Cooking, and sharing your love of cooking with friends and family, is another way to live artfully.
Here, we designed a kitchen that supports the art of cooking. A kitchen that supports several work areas, cooking, and preparation areas keep the family cooking together and enjoying the simple pleasures in life. This space is functional for two or three people working together, encouraging joy and flow in living artfully.
This second kitchen designed for living artfully was designed for consummate cooking and wine enthusiast. We designed this kitchen with all of our client's passions in mind. In this kitchen, you can be cooking on the cooktop, decanting and pouring wine, and grabbing the right tool for the job simultaneously in this gourmet kitchen.

The Art of Family

Although we don't often think of it this way, creating a home where your children feel safe and valued is an art form in itself, and definitely a part of living artfully. We help our clients design homes where family is the center of the home, enriching their artistic practice of fostering a loving family environment.
Designing for an artful family means incorporating resources for children into family rooms, game rooms, and other shared spaces. It means creating spaces that encourage fun, play, and exploration of creativity. For example, having creative toys like musical instruments within reach encourages artful living in children and adults alike.
Sometimes, it can be challenging deciding which of your child's artwork to display. Here, we helped a client display their child's artwork artfully, encouraging self-expression and honoring the child.
In addition, designing private spaces for kids where they have time to explore their interests in life is important. A child's bedroom is their most important space. To encourage artful living, kids should have the space to play guitar, do art, read, study, and just be themselves and explore whatever their interests may be! We recently designed two bedrooms for two twin brothers with very different personalities. Reflecting this, they ended up with very different bedrooms! Encouraging their individuality is an important part of the art of family.

Collecting and Curating

So many of those of who are committed to living artfully have items that we love because they are sentimental, or because they say something about our passions in life. Incorporating these items into homes is another important way we help our clients live artfully.
This first client loves vintage finds and has a hobby of spending time on the hunt in local antique shops to find things that resonate with her. Not only did we help her incorporate her favorite vintage finds into her interior, but we also helped incorporate a custom railing by a local artisan, further reflecting her love of all things vintage.
Secondly, these clients sought our help curating their collections of things from the homes they grew up in and other items they've collected themselves over time. We custom designed a built-in, serving them both as a buffet and a way to visually organize their collection.
Living artfully is the best way to live, and it is absolutely a practice in authenticity. We think these clients' homes express their authenticity and passions beautifully, and we hope you draw inspiration from them to live artfully in your own unique way.