9 Low-Lift Design Ideas To Try

AKA: Tiny tweaks that won't take over your life 🌞.

Hi friends + happy holiday week, a few fun/cheerful things to give you a boost before we get into today’s design menagerie ❤️…

✨ A trailer for the 2008 autobiographical film The Beaches of Agnès by artist Agnès Varda popped up in my feed earlier this week, and I’m adding it to my watch list for the holiday weekend…if you’ve seen it, drop a comment below for discussion!

✨✨ As summer’s most devoted one-pot supper club queen, I am wholly committed to making all my favorite dishes in one singular (sassy) vessel. We have a fun dinner party coming up, and I was thinking of venturing slightly outside my comfort zone to try my friend Colu’s recipe for brothy clams and sweet summer corn AND in honor of today’s story vibe, serving it in THIS. 🩷

✨✨✨Do you need/want a new playlist for the weekend? I have a new one that’s almost finished and clocking in at about two hours. Drop a comment if you’d like me to send it out here before Friday, and I’ll hustle to finish it. Don’t forget, there are 16 other xcellent free ATA playlists I’ve made for you right here if you’re new to our crew here and want to catch up.

✨✨✨ In case you missed it, a new take on Talking Heads “Psycho Killer” starring Saoirse Ronan, directed by Mike Mills. So good. 🍦

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Raffi started camp on Monday, and with summer—and all its new seasonal STUFF— always comes this serious urge to purge. It always starts with her winter things that no longer fit (or sadly, she never wore), and then I inevitably move on to all the other hot spots—our front door junk drawer and all the lingering bits that never found a home, appliances we don’t use or never opened (I am cool with cooking my pasta out of a box), tailoring that never got tailored, books we’re done with, AND—my digital files.

I’ll share more of this in a future ATA essay, but as I’ve been combing through my phone files + folders, specifically my photos, it’s been therapeutic being reminded of what I like again (not just what all my feeds/algorithms want me to like). Taking time to tune out the outside noise to get back in touch with the stuff I’m curious about and want to go deeper with. When I edited down my design/interiors folder, it was invigorating letting go of images/inspiration I realized I’d outgrown. And then, spending time meditating/organizing the ones that still hold my attention…and gave me that little THRILL. Since summer isn’t exactly the energetic vibe for taking on huge home projects, I decided to pull out some of my favorite visual cues that might deliver some low-lift inspiration. Nothing too costly or complicated, just some ideas to get you thinking about your space in fresh, unfettered (ie: anti-algorithmic) ways…let’s get into it. And happy, happy fourth. xxCb

1. The black + white stripe.

I found these images from back when I did a project with Christiane Lemieux in 2018, and I was struck by how much I still loved her black and white striped club chairs. It got me to thinking to how one of the boldest patterns can also act almost like a neutral in connecting all the disparate dots in a room…

Case in point, Georgia O’Keeffe’s wondrous home in New Mexico…I mean, it really is the Greatest Living Space of ALL Time, and her black and white striped blanket reconfirms how timeless and iconic such a simple thing can be in elevating any room/any style…in an instant.

I also found this shot of one of the bedrooms at an artist’s residency Kevin and I visited outside Helsinki, Finland…see how the pillow organically brings all these different elements together?

And here are a few striped things you might be into that I am into, from top left: The Company Store, Loomia, Arthur Arbesser blanket for HEM, Williams Sonoma, vintage Gio Ponti-style slipper chairs on Chairish, and the perfect little area rug by Raymour & Flanigan 😬.

2. Fuck around.

This is a wall/light “installation” my friend Sheri made many years ago for her home in East Hampton. I took this photo in 2014 and have never (ever) forgotten it. I know most of us don’t consider ourselves artists (even tho we all sort of ARE), but I hope this image serves as inspiration to learn how to experiment and play with materials again, like she did here, looping and stringing and hanging…to GREAT effect. Because that is EXACTLY what our homes are for—experimenting, learning more about ourselves + what we like through trying out new colors or cabinet pulls or fucking around with a string of white lights + a jumble of insane rope to hang on a wall. Just because.