Vicente Wolf

I can see how this can happen. Everything is how you want it,and it is beautiful. But keep in mind, where your mind is, there will you heart be also. I’m sure, if given a moment, you would realize that your heart is not with that pillow, or the hospital corners. So put the breakable stuff in a cupboard, it will give you a chance to rethink them when you put them back. And put your heart where it really is, your dear friend is much more important.

I’m a Virgo, one of the pickiest control freaks in the universe so I get it. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that although my home may be beautiful, it doesn’t matter so much unless my guests feel truly welcomed and comfortable. Did your obssessiveness make your friend feel at home? Did she feel like she could relax on those pillows you feel so strongly about? I think not. I assume you live alone, I’ve never heard you mention a significant other. Having total control over your environment may have made you think that that having things “just so” is more important than making others feel good. Order and control can make us feel safe and secure, but to some extent, that’s only an illusion. Perhaps you could lighten up, and think about how relationships with people are more important than things. Charlotte Moss and Bunny Williams have both written a lot in their books about hospitality, and how to make your home inviting to guests. Their POV helped me mellow out about it.

I am OCD when I am alone, but when I have guests, I try to loosen up a little so they feel welcome. You will notice I said “try.” I still hand them a coaster if they have not used one. A pillow without the proper loft is one thing, but a water stain on my furniture is quite another.
Best…Victoria

Architects and designers are people who can visualize a better world and it’s only natural to exert that influence wherever we can. Since our homes and offices, and some of our client’s projects where they grant us the right, are the only places that we can get that opportunity, I think it’s logical that we bring order to those environments and maintain our personal spaces once designed. As long as being neat doesn’t overwhelm or negate ones enjoyment or that of your family, guests or clients, then its not a problem. Work environments are special places where we almost have to have some creative disorder while we design and then reorder the space when done.

Like you, my family and I are collectors and so there is a lot to keep tidy! It doesn’t always stay that way and takes effort to restore order. But it’s a labor of love. I’m impressed how the uniformity of your own personal white interiors and the picture rails organize the great variety of B&W photos in your collection. Before you can be neat, you have to create an environment that can be ordered. BTW, order doesn’t imply military precision or rigid symmetry to me. The ever-changing angles and patterns of beautiful Medieval European streets are deliciously irregular but usually Scrubby-Dutch clean and free of clutter.

I tend to tidy up a guest room I’ve slept in, hang up clothes I’ve tried on in a shop or return objects to a shelf that I examine in a show room. It’s a very small way to help the world be orderly! I would rather have the influence to remove telephone poles and electric wires to underground utility raceways, remove highway billboards and substitute smaller-scaled attractive signage, design sidewalks and bicycle paths for suburban communities that don’t have them. But we all do what we can! – Gary