I’ve been thinking about the word luxury lately.
We use it so easily in design.
Luxury residence. Luxury materials. Luxury furniture. Luxury living.
But I’m not sure the rooms I experience as the most luxurious are necessarily the ones with the most expensive things in them.
For me, luxury begins with atmosphere.
It’s the feeling of walking into a room and immediately wanting to stay.
The temperature of the light. The weight of a curtain. The softness under your feet. The sound a door makes when it closes. The space around a beautiful object.
None of these things announce themselves.
Together, they change everything.
Of course, beautiful materials matter. Craftsmanship matters. Art matters. The way something is made matters enormously to me.
But expense alone can’t create atmosphere.
I’ve been in extraordinary rooms filled with extraordinary things that somehow left me cold. And I’ve been in much quieter spaces where the light, proportion, materials and objects came together in a way that was impossible to forget.
I think the difference is intention.
When I’m designing a home, I’m constantly thinking about how it will feel before I think about how it will photograph.
Where will you want to sit in the morning?
What does the room feel like at night?
Does the dining room make you want dinner to last another hour?
Can you walk barefoot through the house and feel the materials change beneath you?
Where does the light become softer?
Where do you feel protected?
Where can the eye rest?
These questions may sound small, but I think they’re where luxury actually lives.
It lives in proportion.
In comfort.
In materials that invite you to touch them.
In something made beautifully even in the places most people will never see.
In a room that has enough confidence not to fill every surface.
And perhaps most importantly, in things chosen because they matter, not simply because they impress.
I don’t believe restraint means minimalism.
A room can be colorful, layered, even exuberant and still feel restrained.
Restraint is knowing when enough is enough.
It’s allowing one extraordinary piece to have space around it.
It’s understanding that not every material needs to be precious, not every object needs to make a statement, and not every corner needs to be filled.
Some of the most luxurious moments in a home are almost invisible.
A drawer that closes perfectly.
A reading light exactly where you need it.
A chair you can actually sit in for hours.
A piece of stone selected not only for how it looks, but for how it feels beneath your hand.
A curtain that moves when the doors are open.
These are details you may never notice in a photograph.
But you notice them when you live there.
And that’s an important distinction for me.
A beautiful interior can be seen.
A luxurious interior has to be experienced.
Maybe that’s why I find it difficult to define luxury through a particular style.
It isn’t marble.
It isn’t a certain designer.
It isn’t a price tag.
It isn’t more.
It is the accumulation of hundreds of thoughtful decisions until, eventually, you stop noticing the decisions at all.
You simply feel them.
A sense of ease.
Of comfort.
Of beauty without effort.
Of being exactly where you want to be.
That, to me, is luxury.
Currently Living With
A book: A Court of Thorns and Roses
An object: My Oura Ring
A material: Honed veined burgundy marble
A question: What makes something feel luxurious before we know what it costs?