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How to Decorate

Ep. 121: designer Vern Yip

How to Decorate

Ballard Designs

Arts, Business, Design

4.2785 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2019

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Designer Vern Yip returns to the show to tell us about his new book, Vacation at Home and gives us insight into 18 special steps to create your everyday getaway inside your home. He talks about why we feel so relaxed on vacation and in luxury environments, and how we can start to foster that in our homes with a foundation that helps us live the way we want, and takes things off our “to do” list permanently. Vern also shares how he keeps his personal home so beautiful with kids and over 500 lbs of dogs, why fewer but bigger may be better, and a few suggestions for picking out a color scheme that will work best for your home. What You’ll Hear on This Episode: Vern Yip is back to talk about his new book Vacation at Home, but first, we must give a special nod to his book Design Wise that won the podcast’s award for “Best Design Book”. A special quick mindfulness practice to gain clarity on how to visualize a space that gives you that feeling of rest and regeneration. Some great ideas on decluttering, storing mail, and deciding what things should stay or go. A few of Vern’s 18 primary rules to creating a home that feels as though you are on vacation. Why we breakdown things in terms of things we love, things we need, and where exactly that thing will go. The beauty of refreshing your environment and rotating things out, even including bedroom art. What Vern means when he says “designing for a focal point” to create a view and give the eyes a rest. Yes, it’s possible to take things permanently off your to-do list. Vern explains how organic components and great planning can assist in this mission. Symmetry is your friend, and Vern shares some things you can do to implement a sense of organization and balance. Why we will never go longer than a week before washing our hand towels!! How Vern set a few easy rules and guidelines for his children to follow to keep the home neat and free of toys scattered about. Mentioned In This Episode: Vern Yip @vernyip Vacation at Home Marie Kondo Decorating Dilemma First off, wow. What a beautiful home with an amazing view. We suggest working with spacing first. You can use our Room Planning Tool to put in the dimensions of your room (and even your furniture!) and figure all of it out before you start purchasing things. After that, Vern agrees that the walls should be a lighter color than the ceiling. To create a feeling of expansion and openness. ______________________________________________________________________ Vern thinks this is a great room in terms of windows. We do think, however, that the cut out is making it less symmetrical, so just something to consider. Vern mentions that you can possibly edit your furniture and take off some of the open shelving. Second, when you decide to put window treatments, take the curtain rod all the way up and have your treatments go under the crown to the floor. This will increase the perception of volume in the room. Don’t be afraid of a contrast color, and when it comes time to choose your wall color, Vern suggests having a couple ideas up on the wall, and take down the ones you don’t like until you are left with two or three. Then, you can get sample pots and see how they perform before you make a single choice.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi and welcome back to the How to Decorate Podcast from Ballard Designs.

0:03.2

We want to teach you how to decorate your home and unleash your inner decorator.

0:06.6

So we'll be interviewing interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world, sharing the trials and triumphs of our own homes, and also answering your decorating questions.

0:15.1

I'm Caroline. I run the Ballard Designs blog, How to Decorate.

0:18.0

And I'm Taryn. I'm on the product design team at Ballard. And I'm Karen, and I head up branding of Ballard. We're your hosts. Hi.

0:43.6

So our guest today is a return guest, and he has a new book, Vern Yip.

0:45.6

It is called Vacation at Home.

0:53.0

And I believe in our last recording with you, we were all raving about your book because we loved it so much.

0:56.0

And actually, I don't know if you even knew this, Vern.

1:01.8

It, we gave you an award for Best Design Book.

1:03.9

I heard through the Great Pride.

1:05.2

I was so excited.

1:06.7

Thank you so much.

1:09.7

That's huge because I know you guys read every book under the sun.

1:10.7

A lot of books.

1:12.1

But yours are always really practical.

1:17.1

Really break things down into real manageable sound bites almost.

1:18.8

So I really like that about them.

1:19.0

Yeah.

1:22.1

It's like a textbook almost, but prettier.

1:25.4

That's why I was shocked you had more tips to absorb.

1:26.1

That's right.

...

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