all photos by the supremely talented Melanie Acevedo

I love pretty things far too much to be any sort of respectable minimalist.

In fact, so great is my fondness for the pottery and the art and the foliage and the coffee table book and the marble object and the... (you get the idea), that, in my own home at least (oddly, we can work a minimalist space for a client with aplomb, though we don't encourage it, because what's the fun in that?), sparse surfaces seem like a pipe dream.

And, yet, these rooms above, with their artfully restrained mantles and tables and walls, are calling my name like nobody's business. Maybe it's the fact that things are a little nutty in my world of late — a soupcon of uncertainty, some mad juggling, a dash of crazed — that the idea of largely unadorned (and seemingly low maintenance — I mean what is there to dust?) rooms is just highly appealing. Or maybe it's just damn pretty. Either way, I feel a Goodwill trip in my future.