7 Ways to Give Yourself the Gift of Home

Things—even ordinary objects—are powerful when they're gathered together. I had a client who loved to travel with her boyfriend. They collected sand from every beach they visited and brought it back in small black film containers. I thought that was one of the coolest things I'd ever heard, and knew we had to bring it into their space. We transferred each vial of sand into vintage glass containers etched with the dates and locations of each trip. Now when you walk in their home, you see 30 samples of sand on their bookshelf. It's striking and the kind of thing that really tells the story of who they are.