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What do YOU Need for YOUR Home?

Lesson 4 from: Function-Driven Interior Design

Tobi Fairley

What do YOU Need for YOUR Home?

Lesson 4 from: Function-Driven Interior Design

Tobi Fairley

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Lesson Info

4. What do YOU Need for YOUR Home?

Lesson Info

What do YOU Need for YOUR Home?

What do you need in your house or what types of ruse actually do you need in your house? So this is going to be that way that we sort of start to again, assists what spices we have, what we're going to be doing in those spices and whether or not your home and your spices are working for you. So I'm going to just take you through, sort of almost like a little quiz on and maybe even get some of you, too, so we alluded to some of these earlier, we're going to define them a little bit more and help you really start to decide, um, what kinds of things maybe you need to bring into your home that you don't currently have to make it work for you. So think about your own home for a minute and let's, start making that checklist of what needs to happen in your space. So things like a formal living room or a formal dining room, a play room, maybe study or office, guest room, kids, rooms and then maybe even more multifunctional spaces. Um, so there's, all kinds of things that you could do in your h...

ome, depending on what your needs are, and we're going to start deciding with those are at the moment, so I came up with this little equation that I love, I love to make things that's that right brain left brain sort of thinking that I love to do, and I like to put things into a more quantitative equation like this for us. So I think life's stage where where you are in your life, plus your lifestyle, plus the layout of the space, which is the piece that you that doesn't change it's, that, um, you know, set parameters of your actual space that you have to deal with really equal whether or not you're spaces livable for you, and we're gonna look at what some of these are and help you identify where you are in each of these pieces, so that we know by the end of this session will really have an idea if your spaces livable for you and maybe you'll start to recognize which places aren't livable if you don't already know which ones aren't working for you. So really there five major life stages is, uh, that air recognized in psychographic data, and we're gonna look at what these are right now, and you'll be able to identify obviously where you are at the moment, but also be thinking about where you're headed next. We also be thinking about how long you're going to stay in your house because if you're moving every single year, it might not be as important for you to think about your next phase but some of us are going to be in a home five years, ten years some people even intend to live in a space much longer than that, so they're gonna have to think ahead if they're going to go from, you know like pre family through empty nest in one space you're gonna have a lot of different things to deal with so let's, look at what these five life stages are so that first one is pre family young adults living without children in a space so some people don't ever have a family and they're always in this phase until they get into one of the other one so you might not necessarily move through all of these but you can start to identify which one you are in this is also really important you know how last time we loved creating those terms and everybody started identifying sally with like I'm in a or I'm a bee or you know those kinds of things that's the great thing about this concept this little sort of quiz with regard to design professional so those design professionals that air watching khun start thinking about all of their clients in these different areas of their life stage two because it's gonna help them really identify maybe what a client needs. Sometimes our clients don't know what they need, and we have to tell them what they need, and this could really help you get some great information there. The next one is called the dependent life stage, and this is families with very young children or elderly parents at home. But either way, someone is depending on you to help them exist on a daily basis. So someone that you're caring for that can't necessarily care for themselves in your household. The next one would just be the family stage, which is adults living with at least one child that's twelve years or older in the home. So those twelve year olds all the way up to what we heard earlier, the thirty one year old still living at home, but other adults living in the space along with you that you're having to accommodate all of their needs and and honestly, this one can be the one that is most needy, because when you have adult children with all kinds of different interests and hobbies and activities on there's four five, maybe people living in the house together that are over the age of twelve, that could be a lot of different things going on. Empty nest is that phase of adult with older children who are out of the home or have adult children possibly who have moved back in and that's not necessarily emptiness, but maybe it's more you were an empty nester, and then maybe these adult children moved back into the household, and so you were used to living there by yourself, and you have things the way that you wanted to maybe even remodelled the rooms that these older children were living in, and now they've come back. And how do you accommodate all of those things? And then the the last phase, the fifth one is the mature face, which is adults beginning to think about their own elderly years and how and where they're gonna live at that phase in their life. So you can see as you look at each of these, depending on where you are, sometimes you need to already be thinking of the next face. So if your pre family but you're thinking you're married and you're thinking about having children soon and you're going to move into a new house, she might already need to be thinking about what, how this spice would function for children or if you're, you know, in the emptiness. Face and you're moving towards that more mature phase of your life and you really need to see if this could be a home where you could live as you age sort of that aging in place thing you need to be thinking about that so sometimes depending on how long you're going to stay somewhere, you need to think about different phases lift different life stages um at the same time so let's think about some of these and what some of the details are of them. So live stage, how many of you, um, are single with no kids or are either you're a male in this household? I mean, in this room? So you were single with no kids and you are married with four babies that's it j k o you live you said you lived by yourself, so you're going to be in that pretty family life stage um and then how many of you are single with no kids and your female? So that was you? Okay, sorry said this he was male it with no kids, your female with no kids. So again just showing even just the design, aesthetics and the thing that you know in these images that start kind of leading you to what different needs are even between genders of single people in certain households, tio um also in this life stage question how many of you are married with no kids so you said you were married with no kids on dh so even you know, thinking about what you both have in your own hobbies and and bringing that together that was one of the hardest stages for me was to go from being single at age I didn't get married until I was thirty on dh then suddenly being married and combining that whole lifestyle life stage peace and how much space each person gets and how much of each person's things you're actually keeping of course is the the woman in my household and the interior designer I wanted to get rid of all the stuff my husband was bringing to the marriage but I couldn't quite do that but it certainly had to do with you know how our space was livable to get all of our things in together on our last show toby if you remember that my my sister is very very house proud and she's done a lot of work on her design and everything and she's really take very seriously but she had children later in life and she actually had quadruplets so when they arrived with joy I saw and seeing her perfect home trash it was actually very entertaining you just can't cope of that point and it was very hard for her to adapt house beautiful and she always planned tow hopefully have children or was it just a decision she made later? No, it was a decision they made later absolutely so she probably had not planned so the house she was in probably had no planning for the potential family anyone plans? No, they don't know that that is a very serious huge and four boys and it's a hugely but a lot of times people at least think they're going to you know think one day I'll have children but then sometimes I think she had to have that thought about our relation speak for her but she had developed this beautiful home with all of these very coordinated common you knew you'd love it, but it was just didn't quite work out once the boys arrived that's so interesting? Well, that's a great example for thinking of this too in life stage and of course there is something you know to be said for life stage just because you're married with children, it is not all encompassing just that you know that description or that label because you could be a twenty something with children or you could be a forty something with children and those are two entirely different things too depending on where you are in your life, so if there's even a little bit more to the story, I guess than then what we're showing here so married with with no kids we talked about and then how many no one in here was married with young children except for may I guess I'm the I'm the one with the eight year old this is a fun wearing just we talked about this in the color of course but I designed this for a little girl that would grow with her too so that this was one of those homes that had turns in terms of space that we could do all kinds of fun things this room was the size of probably a master bedroom or bigger men than a master than a lot of people would think in the master bedroom but we were able to create things that would grow with her as she moved into older ages and sleepovers and all kinds of fun things um and then how many of you sally you have teens in the home do you still have stains in the home to um so we were just talking a little bit about that a second ago but starting to have these personalities develop hobbies developed and people's own thoughts about how they wanna live and do things and how that you talked a little bit last time about your daughter who wanted her room a certain way I will say that having teens is much more challenging for me than having toddlers ever wass I felt like I had more control over the space and the organization and and all of that and with teenagers you just don't have that control plus you want to let them be expressive um that's really challenging this so even not just the personality and not just the design aesthetic can you not control but you even feel like the clutter and the the organization piece the function pieces a lot more challenging at this is a link it is well and especially for someone like me who's very organized and meticulous on ly one of my three kids is like that the other two just you know, could carol couldn't care less. So what are the some of the things that you are most challenged with storing and organ corralling and organizing in that kind of thing? I think, well, my challenge is wanting to go into their rooms and redo it constantly, and I just have to learn to close the door honestly, because I can't really trying to organize a teenage girl's life is just not a good idea, it's just not a good idea and a mother daughter relationship certain like activities or things that she isn't like clothing and makeup and stuff is it certain activities like what? What challenges mostly clothing make up things like that just general girl clutter, you know, when they're doing a sport or something, you've got to try to keep their sports things organized right on and, you know, they need to try and do it, too. So I try to create systems ultimately it's up to them, whether or not they use the system that I put in place, right. So yeah, well, and I even see that with my daughter, whose eight so making sure we know where the soccer uniform is when we're supposed to have it and where the tennis racket is twice a week when she has lessons and all of that. Um, yeah, it's a challenge and having a certain place for that stuff to keep going back so that you're not spending an hour frantically looking for something and then show up to your lesson fifteen minutes like that's, very stressful, um, and that's, the very thing we're talking about, making sure that there is a place for things and that they go back there. But I can only imagine the teenagers will be quite the challenge from a functional design standpoint. Um, and then any of you empty nesters, nobody in the in our audience has kids all out of the home yet. Certainly we can agree that lets me know I'm going to have another son yeah, yeah he's thing he's another he lives in vietnam now I think wow, yeah she's he's moving he's moving e never keep I I honestly can't keep tabs on him any more money but if that's where he was last time I heard so yeah that's my mate this stage, I guess okay, was there a point when you actually had to deal with all of the kid clutter and stuff with your very structured personality? Yeah, that was my my ex wife dealt with atmore. Okay? Absolutely. That's interesting? Well, um so you're the empty nester in the room um and then any of you starting to think about retirement or that phase of your life so not yet not any of us here. Yes, actually this's gonna last a a lot of us wish that we could think of retirement so at some point that we it as well and then a lot of us aren't even going to ever be at that point because things have changed so much. Very few of us will retire in this lifetime, but we'll have to live. We might change to a different type of career, but just the way we live and and work will be a part of our life for a long time probably um so mature it might not be retirement but it just might be the aging piece of dealing with life as we get older and then, uh any of you have we've asked this earlier but have adult children elderly living with you so you said you have on occasion your adult children are moving back and he's just about to turn twenty one so however adult that is are you going to be a deal? Do you think any of you within the next ten or fifteen years will be dealing with aging parents in your life that you'll have to do? Is that a real possibility for any of you that you would have to deal with that in your household? We've got that coming so it's something that's a major something that's a big life change, isn't it? Um okay, so so lots of thought oh, and then are you started yet we talked about just that that's so starting to think about what it will be like if your parents were to have to move in with you or how are even just accommodating them in their own homes and how that would work helping make their spaces more functional for them. So so that's a big you know, a big difference and um thinking about where you are now and where you're going to be a lot of us in places we're like where I live there's a lot of space you have plenty of room to spread out and people build large houses and then all of a sudden you are an empty nester and what do you do with all of that space into you downsize or do you just try to use it in a different way? This is certainly you know, we all talk about how fast time goes time flies and my daughters a almost nine but it will be no time before she's you know, in college and so we just purchased a house that's about four thousand square feet and sometimes you know, you feel like you need that space now he wanted some more space we wanted a pool we wanted some of these other things, but it won't be that long that it's just my husband and I living in this big house and what do you do with that? Fortunately, our master bedroom is on the first floor so some other things to start thinking about us far is making your space function for you asking yourself questions like how do you die? Do you dine in a formal way or in a casual way? So how about any vd or any of you entertainers? Do you liketo have formal dining dinner parties any of that kind of thing in your home? I think I'd actually I'd love to get to that point um whether it's in a future home I'm sure it will be but I think that a formal space would be really fun so how would you would you imagine that being like on a regular basis or for holidays or I could see it being like a sunday dinner sort of space but in my michael grandiose vision it's definitely an indoor outdoor space like maybe in a barbecue area where it's a little more on the casual side probably theresa do you entertain formally and your I do have a formal dining room and I love it I absolutely love it we don't use it all the time but I do try to use it as much as possible and sometimes even just doing craft projects and there is nice and it opens up to r deck so we use it more during this summer for sure I like having that space yeah it is certainly I mean itjust depends on and I'm not one to advocate for getting rid of donovan's I love them only if people are really not going to use them so just something to think about uh leased that how about you do you like to entertain our I do like to entertain um not with a great regularity but I want the option to be able to I have somewhere to eat other than the couch of the counter but I don't have the spare room but I liketo be able to sit at a table with people. And how many people would you think that each of you would typically entertain? Um, it's at a seated dinner. If you were going to do that, like eight people are more. My dining room comfortably seats eight people, but we have a very large families, so we tend to spill out onto other items. If it's the whole a family, you need other spaces that convert into dining areas to or you have a breakfast room or some other places that you can eat it in the deck and you live in california. So your weather. So I seek an eight outside. All right. Okay. But certainly something to think about about how you want to entertain this table on the, um the right is a table that has leave stored inside of it, which is great. So you can just pull them out. Um, and they lift up and it make on both in. So you can have just one end of the table longer. Or both ends. And it really, um, because it seats eight already without the leaves open. So I think it sees, like, twelve people. So another fun way to start thinking about, uh, how many people you might want to seat at this would be great also, if you're not in your forever house because it could be but you want to keep by investing a great table because it could be something that could grow a sze yu had a larger space and it's a supposed to having those leaves that you have to store in a closet, which is also a functional piece like where you're going to put these things I lived that they store right in the table, okay, so where does your family like together together? Typically like asking yourself? Um, are you like me? And you end up spending ninety percent of the time in the bedroom at your house? Are you always in the living room? How do you how do you live in your home? Most of the men, you're there by yourself and you still so you spend most of your time um, watching tv there are working, or how do you use that space watching tv or reading on the couch with my laptop? Actually on my lap, I have ah, a deck as well, so I'll just throw the sliding glass door open and kind of have an extended living room that goes into the outside, but that's that's, the a portion of the box that I hang out yeah, okay, how about you accordingly? The kitchen? I'm a huge cook, so whenever I'm cooking always invite people to sit in that area so that's the most use basically I think in your house and then how about you? Definitely the kitchen family room area and back patio um some usually either in the kitchen cooking kids at home watching tv back patios where I don't do a lot of gardening but that's where I focus because that's where I'm at and I see all my flowers out there if I want to read or do something quiet, I go in the other room either the living room or my bedroom. So do your kids just want to be where you are all the time? Are they and their spices a lot? They used teo I mean, when they were younger for sure, definitely and I wanted to point out to something that you brought up about noise in a space and how it effects. Before we remodeled our kitchen, we had one of those little old tvs that was just up in the cabinet and so it wasn't bigger, loud or anything, but I'd have it on and have the cooking shows on or the news or whatever and it was great, it was very comfortable, but excuse me and then after a remodel, we got the big tv on the wall. We got the surround sound got all of that and I actually do not like it. I miss having the little tv, you know it's really noisy and bothersome noise. We have slate floors eso it's just it feels it it's too loud and too busy. Yeah that's. Yeah that's good. Yes, let's was kind of my point of like, do we really need eight televisions for five people are three people to live in our house and because of that very thing like you can't even get away from them sometimes. It's nice to still have a quiet space to go to is it so everyone's actually different and sometimes we think that we all live the same way we just assumed that people spend all their time in the living room and there's lots of people who don't spend their time in the living room like me who spends most of my time so in in the in our new house there's this great room that's wonderful it's going to be the formal living room I mean, it is already the formal living it's gonna be a beautiful when when I get it remodeled. But it's, funny because I spend all my time in the bedroom of my husband, spends all of his time in the sunroom and ellison's just goes back and forth between where one of us are. So we live basically, and the kitchen's in between, which were in there a lot. So we're kind of like a lot of you, just in a very small portion of our house, for the most part. But we thought we needed more space, right? Um, so asking yourselves, really how you live in the space or asking. This isn't a really important question to ask clients, because I can't make the assumption that other people live the way I live as everybody really lives differently and where their comfort is zone is so so from this section we are, we started to think about really what life stage we're in and really how and where we're living in our house, how we're entertaining. Is it casual? You know where we're hanging out, as opposed based on what life stage we're in.

Class Materials

bonus material with Purchase

Glossary of Design Terms.pdf
How To Photograph.pdf
How to Measure.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Tobi!!!! She is a wealth of information and her cup flows over with ideas. The course was sometimes hard for me as I found the studio audience distracting and felt like they took away from the class. Not to sound heartless, but I personally don't care about their issues and problems and going on and on about themselves and their opinions. I am paying for this course to learn from Tobi, not someone that doesn't have anymore knowledge than me. I just want to drink from the hydrant that Tobi has to offer. My time is limited and so wading through the audience participation was often frustrating. Tobi was amazing though. Thank you Creative Live!!

Amy Cantrell
 

I enjoyed this course even though the pace is a bit slow at times. Happy that I bought it on sale. My favorite concept is "use the space you have".

a Creativelive Student
 

I would like to know who makes the fabric on the black and white chair in Tobi's Function driven interior design segment? Thank you, and I am so loving all of my classes that I purchased!

Student Work

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