Just the Essentials, Ma’am The seven key pieces you need to purchase only once Not just for the bedroom, a dresser like the one here can add an interesting touch to a dining room. Plus you get instant storage for linens. By Janet Reynolds | Photos by Lucas Allen
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uzanne and Lauren McGrath, the mother/daughter interior design/ blogging/book author team, have one overarching belief. “For us,” they write in their new book, Good Bones, Great Pieces, “decorating is not about the quick fix or about chasing the latest trend. It’s about following one simple rule: Almost every piece you purchase should have the ability to take on more than one role in your current or future home.” And that, in a nutshell, is the driving force behind the popular, practical design duo. While our human inclination may be to assume that every time we move we need to start from scratch, in reality purchasing the
right furniture from the beginning will save us a lot of time and money. The right pieces — the seven essential pieces the McGraths have helpfully honed down for us — can move from a weathered Victorian to a modern home and back again. The key, they write later in their helpful book, is realizing that “furniture pigeonholing,” as they call it, is a “creative buzzkill.” In other words, a dresser does not, in fact, only belong in the bedroom. “The concept of the book is really all about flexibility but also practicality,” says Suzanne, a former style editor and producer at Martha Stewart Television. Her family moved often when she was growing up, as
did she when she was a young mother. Living on a budget was an economic reality. “But every time we moved, I’d move our love seat to a different room,” Suzanne says, “and people would say, ‘Is that new?’” She began talking to her interior design clients about this concept. “Don’t focus so much on the accessories and the color. You just need to get the right pieces,” she would tell them. “Those pieces should be flexible enough so they can move from room to room and from home to home wherever you go.” The seven essential pieces that were left standing after a much longer furniture list are, Suzanne says, the most flexible. They’re timesunion.com/lifeathome | 53