Saturday, November 22, 2008

Brave New World

I guess this was inevitable. Technology rules most of our lives and if you can't embrace it, you're doomed for failure. This is my first entry in my blog. I thought I was doing well with just an email account but lately my 4o year old friends have jumped on the facebook bandwagon, welcome to the new millenium guys, 5 years later. We can't help it. I refuse to even entertain the idea of cretaing a page on facebook so I thought this would be a much more mature paltform.

My name is Lisa Papadopoulos and I will attempt, over the next few months, to post the ins and outs of everyday life in our village of Elburn, Illinois. Here's my deal...

I'm 40 years old, married my high school crush (a very sizeable crush), am the proud mom of ten year old twins (a boy and girl) Alex and Winnie, my husband Paul is a partner with Sweet Baby Rays BBQ, I am a one woman show with my own interior design business, Zoe Interiors (hence the name, Duh) and I have a million opinions on a billion subjects. Let the comiserating begin...

I really would like to focus a lot of this on quality of life, broken down into a few different catergories...

* Home (Interior Design, Decorating, Style Trends, Organization, Advice and Opinions)

* Family and Friends (Everyone loves a good bitch session)

* Politics (hang on!) I love to debate and discuss so bring it on

I'm sure there will be all sorts of subjects that come up and I'd love to take them all on, so bring it. First and foremost, this is a site about our homes...how they make us feel, our connection to them, how to improve them, thus bettering our quality of life. Our homes are a sanctuary and in this really insane and dangerous world, we need a base to feel safe, raise our children and take a breath. Our environment here should be comfortable, bring us happiness (if that means a new throw pillow on the sofa, so be it), and be a place to grow. You don't need a big budget (who the hell has one nowadays anyway?) but just some thought and planning. This is where I come in.

I have always had a passion for interior design. When I was a kid, 9 or 10 years old, I would rearrange my bedroom furniture at least twice a year. I made a chandelier out of alluminum foil, ping pong balls and dental floss. Spectacular! I would scour the curbs on garbage day looking for discarded treasures to spray paint and call my own. My mother finally put her foot down when I rearranged her very fussy and extremely formal victorian furniture collection in the living room. I gouged the hell out of the hardwood floors moving some 500 pound Eastlake dining hutch, complete with carrera marble top (which weighed at least 100 pounds). Oops, sorry Mom, but your arrangement was all wrong. Her focal point was nonexistent and the seating was not intimate. Any twelve year old with her head on straight could see that.

Thus began my passion for the home. If I had a more analytical and mechanical mind, I would have been an architect. But I couldn't even wrap my mind around a mechanical 3D drawing of a hand tool in drafting class in high school. It actually hurt mentally, like always trying to look around the corner while someone keeps moving the wall further away. Interior design is much more forgiving and fluid. It must make sense though, you can't float a chair in the corner of a room without an accent table to accompany it. It makes no sense. Where will you put your book or drink? But the fun part is deciding on the shape, color, texture, pattern and profile of the very sensibly placed chair. That's why design is wonderful, the first decision is logical and must be practical. The next step is where all the fun is. Perfect harmony.

I would love questions, suggestions, problems and opinions about anything to do with your home. Aesthetically or emotionally. It is such an amazing chunk of our lives that I think so many people just overlook just because they have never taken the time to actually think about the impact of their surroundings on their lives or they are simply overwhelmed and underexposed to the fantastic universe of design. There is a piece for every taste and budget, I promise. It's very satisfying to help people navigate through it all. The most rewarding feeling for me as a designer is when the project is complete and they either can't stop smiling or start crying (tears of joy). It sounds like sentimental BS but it's amazing to change someones life for the better.

That's why I do what I do. I'd love to help you, too. Let me know what you think, questions, comments, threats, whatever. I'll try to keep up here...keep me busy.

5 comments:

  1. I watched the evening news and they said that 47% of the people were offended by the b word. Just a thought.

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  2. Almost half? Hmmmmmm...I'm not crazy about it in general but one of my Dad's favorite phrases was always
    "quit your bitchin' and moanin'" whenever my sister and I would complain about something. It's sentimental I suppose. I didn't mean it in the context of actual name calling :)

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  3. Anonymous, if we worried about how everyone felt about every word coming out of our mouths, everyone would be afraid to speak. Words are only that, words. There is only derrogatory meaning behind them if we allow that way of thinking. It makes me utterly disgusted when we hear of someone well known going to "therapy" because they used a word someone found offensive. Haven't you ever heard the old adage "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"?

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  4. FYI...the 1st amendment is freedom speech..doesn't say anything about offending people.

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  5. WOW! YOU GO KATMANDU! I'M JUST TRYING TO BE A GOOD HOST HERE AND NOT OFFEND ANYONE TOO BADLY. HOWEVER, AS ANY OF MY CLOSE FRIENDS WILL TELL YOU, I CAN HAVE QUITE THE SAILOR MOUTH. IT'S EMPOWERING AND BOLD WHEN USED IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. THERE IS A TIME AND PLACE FOR ALL LANGUAGE AND IF USED CORRECTLY CAN BE INCREDIBLY POWERFUL. THANKS AGAIN KATMANDU! HAVE A GOOD HOLIDAY ALL...

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