by Kate Jonuska
how home design affects our lived experience
SHEA MCGEE of Studio McGee has been a star on Netflix via “Dream Home Makeover” and a success on the internet with online retailer McGee & Co. However, in her book, “The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home,” McGee reveals that her success in home design stems from being a homebody herself and believing that how our home looks affects how we feel inside it.
Based on her tips and the book’s bright and bountiful photographic inspiration, how McGee wants us to feel in our homes is calm, grounded and naturally beautiful. Describing the Studio McGee lens as “beautifully balanced interiors with a perpetual sense of calm,” she explains and demonstrates how the best rooms balance beauty with livability.
To that end, McGee shares her process, including how to create a mood and work with an architect or architectural details. She then travels through the house showing how to spread an air of elevated livability room by room.
“Simplicity is a feeling created by hundreds of nuanced details,” writes McGee, later explaining, “The real secret is in the mix. High and low, old and new, curvy and straight—you could be in a penthouse apartment or a beach bungalow, and this (balancing) approach would land you in the sweet spot of lofty, yet down-to-earth design.”
Generous with her talent and expertise, McGee also shares her favorite color palettes, furniture arrangements, fabrics and more both via photography and an invaluable section called the Style Guide. The latter is a treasure trove of information about how to size a rug for a room and/ or your furniture; can’t-miss secrets for mixing fabric patterns; how high to hang lights over tables, beds, islands and artwork; and much, much more.
By taking the guesswork out of the process, these designer tips can lend a feeling of calm to your DIY design process as well as your newly designed space and show every reader how they, too, can live in their “Dream Home.”
