How to Live with Objects: A Guide to More Meaningful Interiors

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I found this sculpture in Rome and could not leave without it and an extra bag just to get it home in. It’s a good conversation starter since it’s hard to say if the carved couple are having sex or if they’re just hugging each other.” In the modern home, it matters less whether your interior is perfectly appointed and more if it's authentically personal, unique, and filled with the objects you feel a connection to. Through inspiring home tours and practical advice on how and what to collect, Sight Unseen editors Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer take you on an educational and highly visual journey through the questions at the core of their design philosophy: A favorite vintage object — of which there are way too many to list — would have to be a Christopher Dresser teapot. I don’t own one, just a book of his work; many of his works actually didn’t get past the prototyping stage as they were deemed too avant-garde. There are several reasons I love this object so much but one is because of how unusual and radical in style it would have felt at the time of its creation in 1879: Just pop a color on it and it could be mistaken for an object designed 100 years later. I think one of the hardest things to achieve as a designer is to produce something original, so it’s a nice reference to return to, to inspire you to push boundaries and not create in a vacuum. The manufacturers, James Dixon and Sons, are also from my home city of Sheffield in the UK, so another reason why the object and its material resonates.” MK: The book’s core message is that your interior shouldn’t try to live up to some preconceived and often unattainable notion of “decorating.” The idea of this perfectly appointed, aspirational home with expensive renovations and window treatments is outdated because all that matters now is that your home reflects your personality, which can be achieved by filling it with interesting objects that you feel drawn to or are personally meaningful to you. That is inherently a more playful way to approach your space than feeling this intimidating pressure to make your space look perfect or make it measure up to someone else’s idea of what “good design” is. Just go out there and collect things you love so you can be surrounded by them every day! Our book is meant to be a gentle guide to and jumping off point for that process. My favorite contemporary design object in my house are my Lego orchids. Like a lot of kids, I was obsessed with Legos growing up, and when I saw this at a toy store in Park Slope, my eyes bugged out. Putting it together was not easy, proving that Legos aren’t just for kids, and it was a great use of an afternoon; very Zen. My dad loved orchids (and Legos), so it reminds me of him. And I’ve killed every other plant that has entered my home. I want to buy a Lego bonsai tree next. (The toast coasters, or “toasters,” as I like to call them, are from the MoMA design store.) Oliver Haslegrave, interior designer, Home Studios

Thrifting has become so on-trend not just for the unique and inexpensive objects, but because of the whole treasure hunt experience. What are your top tips for vintage hunting? Vintage (top): Wooden bowls in all shapes and forms by random enthusiastic wood lovers “I love the warmth these bowls add to a space. They also come in very handy, I have fruit and vegetables in them, receipts, keys, makeup, sunglasses, nothing, or all of the above. They serve a purpose beyond the aesthetic, but obviously the main reason I can’t stop buying them is because I love how they look and feel. Above all else I love a freeform burl bowl.” I love how they have reduced the design to its absolute minimum, three basic elements, exploring the archetype of a lamp with dimensions and combinations of color. I have used different pieces from the collection in my last two interior designs and I just love them, how the graphic elements play together with my color combinations and the interplay between 3D and 2D, realism and abstraction.” Emily Forgot, designer

How to Live with Objects

While we did envision How to Live With Objects as a (highly visual) manual for improving your home, we’re calling it the “anti-decorating” book, because we’re firm believers in the idea that, in this day and age, it matters far less whether your interior is perfectly appointed, and more whether it’s authentically personal, unique, and filled with objects you have a connection to. In our object-based approach to interiors, anyone can build an authentic, layered, and beautiful home by personalizing it with meaningful art and design objects — regardless of space limitations, style preferences, or budget. My favorite vintage object in my house (besides my Bambole couch, which brings me immense joy every single day) is the three-armed floor lamp that stands next to it. Allegedly, it’s designed by Goffredo Reggiani, but I found it because I was looking on 1stdibs for something that could light this very dark and tall corner of my living room. I liked that this one was flexible, with curly, Medusa-like tendrils. (I also have curly hair.) When I got it repaired, the Lamp Surgeon, as he calls himself, told me it was ‘the strangest lamp he’d ever seen’ after decades in business. I considered that the highest compliment.” ( Ed. note: For all those who *will* be curious, the olive pillow is linked here!) After the Marie Kondo-inspired craze for purging unnecessary objects, this book is a welcome antidote to the idea that accumulating and appreciating stuff is bad." --Artnet I have this BZIPPY x Sparrow ceramic urn on my dresser at home, which houses the ashes of my beloved cat Lawrence, who died the night we brought our first baby home from the hospital. The color is so calming to me and the shape has this sense of importance and gravity while also being happy and celebratory, which I feel honors his spirit more than your typical somber funerary objects.” Hannah Martin, senior design editor, Architectural Digest Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer are co-founders of the online magazine Sight Unseen, one of the most influential design publications in the United States. Former editors of I.D. magazine, they also work as freelance writers, curators, and

Full of wisdom from professional interior designers. Learn how to discern between originals and reproductions, bargain at antique fairs, and navigate estate sales.” —AirmailWhy do you think it was important to also include creatives and tastemakers in the book? Can you tell us a little bit about some of their anecdotes? With How to Live with Objects, an objet d’art in itself, the founders of the magazine Sight Unseen have created the bible of modern home decor and style; a design self-help book, made to aid in up-leveling the intent and impact of your space. How to Live With Objects is a well of inspiration.” — Vanity Fair In How to Live With Objects, we’ll introduce you to four categories of objects — vintage, contemporary, handmade, and sentimental — and guide you through the process of finding and identifying good ones and incorporating them into your space. We’ll teach you how to find and identify makers and styles you love, which questions to ask when purchasing objects, the secret tactics vintage collectors use when shopping online, and why it’s okay to have at least one thing in your home that no one else understands. We’ll chat with 22 creatives — from Misha Kahn and Mel Ottenberg to Alison Roman and Athena Calderone — about the objects that are most precious to them. And we’ll take you to London, Brussels, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and New York to visit the homes of some of our favorite object lovers, like Charlotte Taylor and Minjae Kim, to hear more about why they live with the pieces they do. There’s a reason we chose the word styling as the title of our final chapter: Whereas decorating refers to creating a holistic vision for a space at the macro level, with the objects acting as supporting characters in a larger story, styling is more about how you arrange things at the micro level, creating moments and vignettes that highlight the objects in the most interesting and aesthetically pleasing ways. You decorate a room; you style a shelf. While the most aspirational interiors admittedly nail both, there are plenty of books about decorating out there, and this isn’t one of them. If you’re truly an object lover, focusing your efforts around your favorite possessions may feel like second nature anyway: “I’ve never opened a decorating magazine for inspiration in my life,” says Linda Meyers of Wary Meyers. “First, we find something, and then we create a space to organize it or display it. The interior is created to house the cool objects. You want to show them off—even just to yourself.”

Mostly I collect furniture, and the objects I do tend to be functional, so I’ve chosen two bowls. One designed in 2012, and one in 1995, both being made currently. I don’t have the Gaetano Pesce but it’s on my wish list.” I have the Max Lamb bowl and use it every night that we cook for salad or vegetables. We love both designers at Home Studios, and the bowls are good examples of why: great balance of whimsy and rigor, very tactile, and you can feel and appreciate the process of shaping the material.” Leo Forsell, Arranging ThingsA refreshing, and necessary, counternarrative to shop-this-look consumerism and the aesthetic sameness that afflicts so many interiors.” — Vulture Full of wisdom from professional interior designers. Learn how to discern between originals and reproductions, bargain at antique fairs, and navigate estate sales." --Airmail I have recently been so into glassware from Dana Arbib. I just got a bunch of her drinking glasses, and I can definitely see myself wanting everything she makes.” Greta Cevenini, stylist

So, it comes as no surprise that when an agent approached the duo to write a book, Jill and Monica knew they wanted to focus on objects. How to Live With Objects—out today!—is a highly visual manual for improving your home and building your confidence in collecting personal, unique objects that you love. “You don’t have to be scared of putting a home together that’s personally meaningful to you,” explains Jill. “We focus on vintage, contemporary, and handmade objects. Plus, there’s advice and house tours where you can see how people live with these objects.” Essentially, this is a book to obsess over. Because it’s like a fluid forever ongoing dream….and yet a functional, modular sofa. I saw it the first time in velvet olive green, very 1970s-style and still how I picture it every time I hear about it, and how I would want it if I could ever afford getting one. Or at least green, I love it here as well in the home of Trine Kjer. This might be a little cheeky but I just can’t go past my new FLOAT sofa as a favorite contemporary design object. This is my latest sofa design that I recently launched with a signature brand colour created in partnership with the Pantone Color Institute.” Taylor Fimbrez, vintage dealer, Odd Eye Monica Khemsurov: How to Live With Objects is a coffee table book, with tons of photos of amazing interiors and colorful objects throughout. We also wrote a lot of text, starting with two opening essays. We divided the rest of the book into four chapters covering four different object archetypes, including how to think about and collect vintage objects, contemporary objects, sentimental objects and handmade objects. The final section is all about how to style the objects you’ve acquired, and in between all those chapters, you’ll find our house tours as well as some of our favorite tastemakers each telling the story behind one object that’s meaningful to them. Overall the book builds a universe around the concept of collecting and living with objects and utilizing them to create an interior that’s highly personal to you above all else. From the editors of Sight Unseen, an anti-decorating book that champions a new approach to interiors—simply surrounding yourself with objects you love.With How to Live with Objects, an objet d'art in itself, the founders of the magazine Sight Unseen have created the bible of modern home decor and style; a design self-help book, made to aid in up-leveling the intent and impact of your space. How to Live With Objects is a well of inspiration." -- Vanity Fair