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Gil Melott Studio

@gilmelottstudio

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Interior Design Studio
Chicago. New York. Select national.
Design Alchemy ↓
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In a world that can’t make up its damn mind, there’s something rather beautiful about the things that refuse to be perfect.

The crooked edge. The wrong turn. The person who knows who they are and doesn’t bother explaining.

Perfection is a tedious houseguest.

Give me something with a little history, a few scars, and a good story.

At least then you know somebody’s been there.

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Hiring an interior designer? Congratulations, you’re in a relationship.

Two years. A prenup we call a contract. A month-eleven crisis where the money’s gone and the sofa is “delayed seven weeks.” At least one friend with opinions and no invoice.

I’m a serial monogamist. Most of my exes still have me over for dinner. Make of that what you will.

New on Design Alchemy. Link in bio.

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Burgundy, color forecasting and interior design: every season the forecasts announce a color, and almost never say why.

So I have questions. In 2021, when you landed on burgundy for 2026, what were you drinking? Had you gone through a breakup? Had the election returns finally gotten to you?

Most people are looking for answers. People with good taste are looking for patterns. A pattern can show its work. An answer just asks you to trust it.

New on Design Alchemy. Link in bio.

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Everybody loves the smell of a new car. That intoxicating little chemical cocktail that tells us we’ve arrived. Untouched. Unblemished. Nobody else’s ass has been in the seat.

We’ve somehow confused that feeling with good taste.

Furniture deserves better.

Give me a chair with a past. Something that’s survived sixty years, a few questionable owners, several decorating disasters, and still manages to look better than most things coming off the production line today.

These 1964 Vignelli chairs, newly dressed in Dedar, have seen a few things. And they’re not finished yet.

I have nothing against new furniture. But a room filled entirely with it reminds me of a dinner party where everyone looks terrific and nobody has a damn thing to say.

Trust me. I’ve been to that dinner party.

Buy new when it matters. Buy old when it means something.

The best rooms, like the best people, have a little history and a few stories they probably shouldn’t tell.

—gm|s.

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The architecture of wealth. The invention of legacy. And the distance between what happened and what we choose to remember.

Reading Trust by Hernan Diaz. A story about who gets to write history—and who gets written out of it.

Thanks to @dopereadsuk for asking what’s on my nightstand.

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A collage is a mishmash of ideas, a collection of memories. That’s generally how I start a project. Or an idea. Or breakfast.

This is a lake house in Whitefish, Montana. It started with these images, this collage, and landed with these fabrics from @sean.leffers

I like the colors because they land in summer, in winter, or in a rainy spring. The patterns look hand-stenciled, and they read that way from across the room and up close.

It’s hard to tell what came first, the decision or the feeling.

#DesignAlchemy #InteriorDesign #Textiles # #SeanLeffers

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Summer of 1976, outside Boerne, Texas. A mile of fence in caliche, a ground so hard the locals use it as a curse word. My cousins and I dug about 500 holes. We got 30 feet wrong. My Uncle Foy hollered from the truck: “You boys measure?” Then he smiled and drove off.

We reset 60.

Everything I know about running a project, I learned that summer: someone sets the line before anyone digs, someone steps back to sight down it, and the crew naps at 12:30. Foy’s rule.

Full essay on Design Alchemy, link in bio.

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DETRÁS DE LA BARRA

Most bars get designed like they’re afraid of the dark. Too many downlights, too much “vibe,” and every surface trying to be on camera.

These rooms commit. Lacquer, brick, velvet, one lamp, and the confidence to let the corners go black.

Mood board for a bar in the works. More shadow, less signage.

Images where known: Studio KO · David Kahn Architects + Fiona Banner · Oliver Gustav

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An upscale kitchen gets back about 36 cents on the dollar when you sell. In the houses I work in, the math only gets worse.

So stop spending like you’re selling. Fund the things you touch, sit in, and see by at night. Skip the badge on the fridge.

New on Design Alchemy. Link in

—gm|s

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My first Design Chicago! Can we do this every week?

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You don’t know who he is. You watched anyway.

Smart gets you an opinion. Confident is free. An expert is a trail you can follow back to something that could have failed.

Four questions, ten seconds, and it works on anyone, including me.

This morning I watched a stranger explain why another stranger isn’t the best-dressed man in the world. I couldn’t tell you who crowned the first one or who the second one is, and I watched to the end.

New Design Alchemy essay link in the bio.

—xG

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Dopamine decor can’t tell the difference between more and too much.

This room can.

— gm|s.

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