These past few weeks we all have been watching the Olympics and the amazing athletes win their medals. The other day I was watching an Olympian being interviewed and he was asked about a quote he had stated in an earlier interview. "It's not about the Gold Medal, it's about the journey it took to get the medal." The reporter was asking him what he meant by that. He explained all the tasks and challenges they all went through to become Olympians.

    I thought about this for some time and it is easy to compare his quote to many aspects in life. We all have ideas, dreams, goals that we are working towards accomplishing. Each phase in life has meaning. Then we accomplish one goal and we make another.

    I put the quote to the idea of how to use it in Interior Design. The majority of us feel some connection to our surroundings. This has started at a very young age while our parents where waiting for our arrival they were nesting and getting our Baby Room ready. So as soon as we came into the world we had some sort of a theme bed room to call our own. There was colors, objects, snugly materials to stimulate us and develop our character. So we grew and our bed rooms and play rooms had our favorite colors, sports, animals what ever made us happy. Then we became adults and now it was time to set the stage of what style are we?
Contemporary, Traditional, Transitional, French Country, Urban, Rustic..... Developing this sense of style from the homes we grew up in; it's time for us to follow the latest trends and create our own look.

    We might start out in an apartment not willing to put too much money into a place that really isn't ours, but again we feel the necessity to create a cool place to hang in. As we move up in the work force world and start to act like responsible adults we buy our first home. Now this is the real deal. Big ideas we start planning to make improvements. Some easy, some we think we could handle on our own and some we knew we couldn't do even if we tried. Now it's time to hire the professionals. Where do we start? Some of us have an idea what we want and others have no clue at all. We rely on the professionals to guide us and treat us fairly. We learn there are some very trust worthy professionals and sometimes we learn the hard way that there are some that call themselves professionals and they are not.So it's easy to say we are in training for the next house.

The 2nd home I'll know better is what your thinking. Now we're maturing and life's ever changing ways brings us to new levels and understanding ourselves better. We have worked hard to get in this new place it's our Castle, our pride and joy. Again we find ourselves with new challenges and trend setting changes. We start the process all over again. Now we're smarter and we have the professionals to turn to. The contractor, kitchen guy, painter, interior designer, landscaper these are the coaches educating us, pushing us to add that extra embellishment that's going to make our palace stand out and be unique. While we're working hard to complete each new project we begin to realize the emotional attachment we have to our surroundings. We pour our hearts and souls into the process. We trust our coaches to help deliver the end results we can envision. So when we cross that finish line, hear the door shut behind that last professional we sit back and think about the journey it took to get to this place of fulfillment. You think.  Ah.....it was all worth it. We have the Gold Medal of homes....