What WOW!house Taught Me About Myself

25 Jul

A rare gift

For a few glorious minutes, I had WOW!house entirely to myself.

No visitors. No chatter. No one standing where I wanted to stand or peering over my shoulder. Just me and room after room of extraordinary design.

It wasn't the plan.

Karen Haller’s train had been delayed in the heat. The railway lines were apparently melting – one of those wonderfully British announcements that somehow sounds both dramatic and entirely believable. Meanwhile, entirely by design, I had arrived a little early.

As I climbed the familiar steps to the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, I was greeted by the glorious seasonal display of flowers cascading around the entrance. They never fail to delight me. The moment the doors opened, I caught the unmistakable fragrance of the beautiful candles that perfume the Centre. It's a scent that instantly transports me back to my days at KLC School of Design. Familiar faces smiled as they welcomed me in, and for a moment it felt less like arriving at an exhibition and more like coming home.

Then I noticed something unexpected.

Stillness.

The building felt unusually quiet. Almost reverential.

It was the perfect counterpoint to the fizzing anticipation I felt inside.

As I stood in the entrance hall, surrounded by the effortless sophistication that always seems to permeate the Design Centre, I realised I'd been handed a rare gift.

Silence.

And with it, an opportunity.

I could experience every room before anyone else's opinions had a chance to influence my own.

Most visitors would probably have reached for their phones.

Instead, I decided to pay attention.

Not to the rooms.

To myself.

Listening to my sensory compass

Over the years, studying colour psychology, design psychology and understanding my own Earth States® have helped me recognise something I now trust deeply: my sensory compass. The patterns in the way I naturally respond to colour and the elements of a space have quietly informed the way I've shaped my own home and, increasingly, the homes I create with my clients.

I wasn't looking for it.

I had already learnt to recognise it.

What WOW!house offered was something rather different.

It gave me the opportunity to navigate one of the richest collections of contemporary interiors I've ever experienced using that compass.

I was curious to discover whether those patterns would remain consistent when surrounded by the work of some of the country's finest interior designers.

Would I still respond instinctively in the same way?

I began to walk.

Slowly.

I wasn't analysing the rooms.

I was observing myself.

Light changed from room to room. Some spaces were bathed in soft, gentle light that seemed to slow my breathing, while others used dramatic contrasts that immediately heightened my awareness. Rich velvets absorbed the light, polished metals reflected it like jewellery, beautifully crafted timber invited my fingertips, while cool leathered stone and deep curves quietly grounded me.

I noticed which colours settled me and which gently unsettled me.

Whether my shoulders softened.

Whether my breathing deepened.

Which chair I instinctively wanted to sink into.

Which room whispered, "Stay a while," and which quietly encouraged me to move on.

One room wrapped itself around me with earthy tones, natural materials and beautifully diffused light. I could happily have spent the afternoon there with a good book.

Another was breathtaking.

Exquisitely designed.

Inventive.

Every detail was beautifully resolved.

I admired it enormously.

And yet, well within a minute, my whole body was ready to leave.

That fascinated me.

Not because it wasn't beautiful.

It unquestionably was.

But admiration and affinity aren't always the same thing.

It was beautiful. Its qualities simply weren't right for me.

Years ago, I might have assumed there was something wrong with me. Surely if an accomplished designer had created a room and everyone else admired it, I ought to love it too.

Now I understand something altogether different.

Our homes aren't meant to satisfy the design world.

They need to feel right to the people who live in them.

To work with us rather than against us, becoming part of the rhythms and rituals of everyday life.

That's a very different brief.

Beautiful isn’t always right

Eventually Karen arrived looking astonishingly composed considering she'd survived delayed trains and temperatures nudging 35 degrees. Most people would have looked as though they had wrestled the railway network into submission.

Karen, meanwhile, was effervescent and as cool as a cucumber.

We wandered through the house together, comparing observations and delighting in how differently we experienced exactly the same spaces. I loved watching her analytical mind spring into action. We'd pause, look at one another and ask, "What did you notice?" More often than not, our answers were completely different.

That's one of the things I love most about design.

There are no marks out of ten.

No universally correct answers.

Only different people responding differently to the same place.

Afterwards we found a shady spot and rewarded ourselves with a gloriously chilled verre piscine spritz. In the middle of a heatwave, the clink of ice against the glass and that first refreshingly cold sip tasted every bit as wonderful as it looked and sounded.

As Karen headed off to the airport and I made my way home, I realised I wasn't carrying a shopping list or pages of notes about what I wanted to recreate.

I was carrying something far more valuable.

Quiet reassurance.

Reassurance that the patterns I've spent years learning to recognise in my own responses remained remarkably consistent, even when surrounded by extraordinary design and the work of immensely talented designers.

What the rooms reflected

It also reminded me how rarely we give ourselves that opportunity.

Most of us now experience interiors through a purely visual lens — and, more often than not, through other people's eyes. Instagram. Pinterest. Magazines. Beautifully curated images telling us what we should admire before we've had the chance to notice how a space actually makes us feel.

I know this because I've realised how often I've looked outside myself for guidance before trusting what my own responses were telling me.

Who knew?

Perhaps that's why WOW!house is such a valuable experience.

Not because it tells us what's fashionable.

Not because it gives us rooms to emulate.

But because, if we let it, it becomes a mirror.

It reflects something of our own patterns of response back to us.

So if you visit WOW!house next year, leave your expectations at the door.

Don't ask yourself,

"Would I have this in my home?"

Ask instead,

"What is this room teaching me about me?"