Henrietta Southam Design

My newest powder room glam up. Just some ol’ paper, lights, custom vanity and mirror. Floor and faucet are courtesy of my excellent client. www.henriettasoutham.com

Early on in the pandemic (how’s that for a fairytale starting sentence) a spectacular emerging artist from the U.K. who I follow, wrote that artists who didn’t acknowledge this earth shattering shift would be denying or ignoring the completeness and truth of their artistic legacy. Which had me stuck. The worse the world felt the more idiotic and ashamed I felt: I have not been suffering. My home was nearly completed, in the greenest capital of the most peaceful country. My pa...rtner in crime rose to the occasion and stayed positive and engaged, understanding and cozy. My kids stayed healthy and active, were forward thinking and malleable to the uncertain future. My job not only did not stop, it got a shot of adrenaline: home is where we will be for the foreseeable future and most want to look at four more calming and collected walls than the walls that had been ignored in our previous rush of life. This sense of guilt that I carry also grew in the literal sense: I carry a growing knot in my stomach. This is not weight. This is, and looks, like an inflated balloon of gloom. At the height of the pandemic in L.A. I flew in to say goodbye to my U.S. Marine son who was getting deployed for the first time. That is what mothers do. His skin, his eyes, his countenance were soft, sharp and straight. Here was a man who had taken no extra weight or guilt on. Here was a man I could look to for inspiration. I wanted to link myself to him by doing something he was doing, to go through something physical that he was going through. The one thing I found, the only thing I found I could possibly do, was not drink. For the length of his seven-month deployment. It started as soon as I came back to become a cellar dweller for fourteen days. One month in I feel I am on my way. I mean to make physical activity a part of my life again too. I am writing this to equally honor the artist who said be a scribe to your time, to make my son proud, but also to be accountable to you. I hope to do him and you proud. www.henriettasoutham.com

Since you have shown love for my unfinished vignettes, here is another one. Curtains are not up, chandelier is in flux, and my bespoke coffee table of my design from a sculptural piece of cedar driftwood I picked out from my lake, has yet to replace these lovely ones which will eventually go downstairs. I go to sleep thinking about the chandelier that could, should and would do best to replace this one. I do love scale but I crave organic materials more in this home. Thing is... I am getting accustomed to it now..when lit it reminds me of a soft excoriated moon rising. I have lusted for a Noguchi, a Tilda, and recently a new paper Barbara Barry lantern, because I can’t afford an Ingo Maurer, an Apparatus or a Lindsey Adelman. It’s so vexing when I find myself stumped in my own damn design and mired in an obvious shortage of funds. I swear this happens to me in order to feel what others feel when confronted with four uninspiring walls and restrictive pocketbooks. What makes me sharper for clients sadly fritters my brains for my own home. Even the art is in flux in my spaces. I have yet to finish the grain lifting of the ash arches, but I am not completely flustered yet as I have quarantine time coming my way. The fine Belgian linen panels, yet to be hung, may be used as canvases for a photosynthesis treatment of ferns using an age old moon trick. A designer’s home has to be their laboratory, as well as the perfect padded-wall lair to hide the madcap scientist from full view. When all this will be said and done..for five minutes, I will shoot it in winter. It will suit the palette. www.henriettasoutham.com

No, our home is not finished yet. Yes, we moved in before Christmas. No, I do not think it will be finished this year. Yes, I do believe in a home evolving gracefully over time. A home in Canada changes with seasons. A home anywhere in the world changes with the flux of life: children leaving the nest, parents coming back to roost. These are the real chapters in a home’s life. I have proposed an article to Luxe Magazine that has been picked up because the title alone, accordi...ng to my very fine inner gospel and heightened self talk, is awesome: how to cuckold covid: online design worth staying home for . I will take the opportunity of a very juicy quarantine coming my way to get in touch with the finest of Canadian online retailers who, in my estimation, make that relentless scary world out there not just palatable, but plushly soothing in a totally self-serving and soul saving kind of way. www.henriettasoutham.com

In my opinion it is important for a designer to change homes, whether upsizing or downsizing, relocating or renovating, so as to put themselves in their clients shoes. I wish mine to know that their pain is mine, their struggles have been the sword I live by, their happiness is my good sleep and their dreams are the fields I play in. They should also know that a well designed home constantly evolves, is never a fixed product nor an untouchable tableau. Take for example this s...cene: I do not know if this mirror is large enough, the handmade white Moroccan tiles are not on the mantle yet, the carpet came to me more brown cow than warm camel, we hacked the Browning sconces with black garbage ties to shorten them to fit the mirror, the coffee tables are meant for the basement but we have so many more pressing bills that this will have to wait, the brass dome chandelier is back ordered, the Costco bargain sheepskin is to protect the carpet from the coffee table legs denting the wool, and the extraneous sofa coverlet is for muddy dog paws. But, BUT...this is life. Life as I know it, life as I live it and life as I’ve dreamt it. And what a beautiful life it is indeed. See more

Henrietta Southam Design is a full-service design firm based in Ottawa, Canada. Admired for residential and hospitality design, Southam’s interdisciplinary design background works to create truly unique and approachable spaces. Whether it be a client’s kitchen, a hotel room or a new restaurant, Southam brings her curatorial flair to each project, articulating her client’s individuality in a design that is inimitably their own. HS Design functions as a collaborative team with our clients, architects, contractors, artists and designers to create environments that are both materially sensuous and distinctively bespoke. www.henriettasoutham.com