So hey, just want to say that your wood tone chart is super rare advice that isn't seen on other popular interior design channels, and that the idea of value instead of "warmth" being another axis is pure gold, very great information, and these are the key tidbits we look from a professional like you, so keep up the actionable advice, thanks.
This was also an aha moment for me, I was casting my eye around my lounge and at last realising what was catching my eye in a bad way. Crossing the chart at the same level of tonal values. Hmm. And now what to do about it because I love the pieces and don't really want to change them 😊
I agree. I've been so knotted up lately trying to decide on a wood trim to bridge the visual gap between our dark wood panel walls and our soon to be refinished red oak floors.
Noah - you have found an audience that loves and appreciates your talent, myself included. We are not however entitled to demand a schedule or anything from that matter - from you. Live and enjoy your life, share when it feels right and remember we are lucky and grateful when you publish - don’t let a false sense of urgency bring you any stress or guilt. Love your patient and appreciative students :)
Also want to add is that the fact you that you don’t eat sleep and breathe YT (ahem - a full life) may have something to with why you stand out from the rest :)
Ooh!!! Would you be able to do a video about working with “dated” materials? Like how you mentioned authentic materials timestamping a space? Ideas and tips would be awesome!!
I recently found out oak takes hundreds of years to grow so to use it in a kitchen and then throw it out after just a few years because its dated is a real underappreciation for what nature provides for us!
Yes! Finally a defence of those oak kitchens and pink tiled bathrooms- i am so on board with the idea that anything well made of good materials should last for generations. If you cannot make it look classy and stylish, that is not the fault of the oak and you should not tear it out - you just need more imagination and flair!
You are the design nerd I've been waiting for. I love the philosophy of design, and while the other design youtubers are great, you have the most contemplative design approach, which is much appreciated.
I want to be supportive and say "oh my god Noah you take your time" but I'm selfish and I love your content and I'm planning a renovation next year and your nuggets of wisdom sre gold so please post every day and don't take breaks 😂
I appreciate that your arguments/claims backed with logical rationales. You are willing to articulate design principles in a way I don't necessarily see online. So much of the interior design discourse feels like arguments based on "vibes", or a sort of appeal to a group think that needs to go unspoken. The implication, intentional or not, then becomes that the presenter/creator typically wants you, the viewer, to intuit their claims. I don't feel that way when I watch your videos and I have learned so much! Thank you!
I feel like I am receiving a top school of design education (or at least a rundown of course list). I am so interested to play with this 'vignette styling' approach on different scales around my home. Thank you Noah :)
Your advice to not match wood pieces but to keep within the same "tone" is sooooo validating to me. When I bought my home, my living room and bedroom floors had Acacia hardwood that showcase every single colour under the warm column in your chart 😂 When we were renovating our kitchen, many people including our contractor recommended we extend our new floor into the living room to make the rooms feel more cohesive. I pushed back because 1) Hello!! Real hardwood! And 2) I thought I could work with it with some existing and new furniture pieces I had in mind. I now have a mix of warm wood colours throughout my home and I LOVE how it all turned out in the end. Also my kitchen floors are harsher and lighter than the wood floors in your materials spectrum so now I understand why they work well together ❤️
I would absolutely LOVE a video from you talking about color!! 😍 Thank you so much for sharing your valuable insight with us, I learn so much from watching your videos
Hope you make a second version of this topic, moving from principles to how you actually applied them into your own living room, for example :) great video, love your channel so much💕
your wood swatching saved my life! i have neutral walnut and warm walnut in the same room, and i like all the pieces separate but together i hated it and couldn't figure out why - THE TONES!!!!! this was also helpful because i've been struggling to wrap my head around pairing materials
The wood chart is a game changer. Thank you. I thought my eye was broken because all the mismatched warm wood tones throughout my house never bothered me.
I really love the concept of working with outdated materials in the right way because it is so much more sustainable to use what is already there. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this! Video idea: take a few common "outdated" styles and advise us how to design with it. Example: 70s brown flower bathroom tiles or brick interior wall.
Please the colour video you mentioned for the future that would be immensely welcome. I'm already excited... Also huge thanks for your explanation of wood tones/value xx
We learn a lot through your videos. When you talked about trendy designs becoming outdated according to some people, I thought right away of my parents kitchen countertop in Paris when I was a child: they had custom made some clear orange epoxy countertop, it was very in the psychedelic spirit then, it was still original for those days, I remember when the guys came to make it in our kitchen, the epoxy smell was terrible, I’m sure that the fumes were not very healthy, fortunately we had a house and a yard so we could go outside. Wish I could have been able to keep a little piece of it, it was an amazing thing, I never saw that anywhere else. I don’t know why, I keep thinking about it even though it’s not my style at all. Today, it would probably be considered as Modern Art because of all the swirls we could see inside the clear orange epoxy and all these nuances of orange and red.
I never comment on things (bad internet person) but I have to tell you how much I appreciate your videos. They are so informative and it is obvious you have a genuine passion for design of all types. You are so original in your content, its never a regurgitation of things everyone else has said. I can tell you think about this alot and philosophize and I'm so here for it. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and you deserve all the praise.
Your videos have really helped me elevate my space. I love that you deal in design concepts and philosophies which is much more helpful than talking about specific objects or furniture. Keep it up!
You’re the best & i love how even your advice is timeless! 💗 we bought our house from a flipper in 2020.. everything is nice and new but sooooo not the ideal style. It makes me feel ungrateful but I don’t even know where to start. Would love a video on un-modern farm housing while still keeping some materials
One way of thinking about the soft vs. hard/harsh spectrum is materials that feel continuous with the natural world vs those that intentionally disrupt it. Wood, brick, stone, textiles are all materials that are more or less easily traced back conceptually to their original forms in nature. Things like glass and metal are more distinct from natural processes but can also help elevate a space in the way that they create productive juxtapositions
Great topic for a long awaited video! I love how Noah says: „does it make any sense?“. Yes it does! It does make a lot of sense. I have went the safe way and matched my bigger wooden furniture to my oak floor. In my culture oak has a special place so maybe that’s why I am leaning towards it. But I think a darker wood coffee table will incorporate nicely and bring in some depth to my living space.
agreeing with you regarding families of wood and metal tones. I've used cool metals (pewter, chrome, iron, polished/brushed nickel) and warm wood tones for years. I'm not too fussy about it - I have brass and gold picture frames for example. but as a general rule it's worked well for me. AND agree about authentic materials. I bought a few "ugly" brown pieces years ago that went out of style almost immediately but kept them and keep them because they're extremely functional and well made of good materials. I've mixed them with modern and contemporary pieces quite easily when they're in the same tonal family. for example, I have 2 walnut coffee tables - one quite trad the other modern. I enjoy your videos!
I love your videos, you are soooo good! When you were talking about some materials being harsh or soft, I kept thinking about the concept of something being pourous or not. In ceramic depending how high you fire the pieces, the pore becomes smaller or less small, which I believe represents this concept so much.
The spectrum helps as it is, its not meant to be so literal I know, but I couldn't help but think about your search for the right words. You said there are multiple spectrums, and I think you tried to merge the two that you started with but perhaps shouldn't have. There is a soft to hard spectrum, where I would put linoleum on the softer side even from a vibe standpoint, but the other spectrum is natural to artificial, where linoleum is rightly placed towards artificial. It is quite complex though: someone else in the comments is asking about mirrors, being glass they are hard and while most glass is artificial, natural glass also exists. Exceptions prove the rule I guess.
Your content is gold & regarding your posting frequency, all I can think of is this line from a Beyoncé song: ‘Radio says speed it up I just go slower.’ I dream of one day hiring you for a consultation. 🙏
Good take on this. If people want to dive deeper into "contrast" for tableau/vignettes/displays in their home, there is a wonderful book by Tim Rundle, (who was/is? a lecturer in art and design and an interior stylist) called Visual Contrast that taught me so much. It explores contrast in many other facets, such as scale, personality, shape etc.
So insightful, thank you! Agree with everything you've said. My own interest in interiors started when I was young and I knew I liked things/spaces when they felt a certain way (rather than looked a certain way). It took me a long time to work out that it was the use of authentic materials that was the draw. I don't so much follow a particular style, but I appreciate all considered and clever uses of materiality. It is a fundamental principle that underpins many of my design choices
What an informative video! I finally have a way to articulate my thoughts on different materials and wood tones to my boyfriend who has had trouble understanding me on this. Definitely a video I will come back to time and time again.
Do you think you could talk about what flooring materials to use if you can't afford hardwood, but you need something warm? I'm renovating a grotty 2 bedroom place that needs everything. It currently has nasty carpet. A laminate fake wood would be practical, but you've freaked me out about it. Actual hardwood would be a challenge, thanks to the subfloor and the budget. Tile is impossible with the subfloor. I'm stumped.
Plywood finished with a good quality hardwax oil can look very beautiful if fitted carefully. Sometimes the trick is just to be patient with what you have and save up for what you really want though. You'll appreciate it so much when the day arrives.
I’m from Belgium and visited the Axel Vervoordt “kanaal” site in Wijnegem Belgium. There is a museum too with art that he curates, It is very impressive! It has so much SOUL to it. Thank you for another lovely video. ❤
It seems “porosity” is a term that would help determine your ideas of soft vs harsh. For example, the limestone is more porous and softer than the flat, dense linoleum. Or fabric is more porous and softer bc of the thread weaving than hard metal
The minimal decor combined with such grand architecture in Kim Kardashian’s home gives the feeling that she lives in a virtual reality. Kind of eerie, but on brand.
noah i love your content so freakin much but u do not have to apologize for taking breaks from posting 🫶 we can tell you put so much time into these videos
Really love your content, thank you! I would be really interested in hearing about your favourite architects and designers and their works, why you love them etc. Would be cool to know where you get your inspiration from
Thanks for sharing all of your knowledge. I have lime/puke green counter tops in my kitchen and orange counter tops in my bathroom. I live in a 1970s duplex 😅
Where in your soft to hard scale would you put a mirror? What if it’s an antique mirror with a more diffuse reflection? (In my mind if you can’t see yourself pretty well in the reflection it make the reflection of the light on it softer and it soften the room)
I know you have a Pinterest account, but it would be fantastic if you had individual reference boards there for videos like this where you use such absolutely stunning examples. That way i can examine the photos in my own time and see how the info you're giving in the video applies to the picture you use without pausing the video or anything ☺️
I am changing the floors in my apartment and decided to go with wood everywhere, even in the kitchen because it's shared with the dining space and I do not like two types of floors in the same room. I am also changing the kitchen, and I am soo stressed because of it. I really want wood (I can only afford some engineered fronts) but I do not have many options here. And what I like does not seem to match the floors I like..A mess..I appreciate the tips for the wood tones, I find them handy, but the process is still challenging.
Hey Noah, what do you suggest for rental houses that don't have honest materials. What would you suggest for fake wood flooring for example. I'm not a fan of it but what can be done in a rental property that won't lose you your security deposit or cost much since it's someone elses house. Thank you
Thank you for the video. Can you explain more what does an honest material mean for materials like quartz and laminate? I'm not sure what look would qualify as honest. Thanks!
So, about the CONTRAST via softer vs. harder elements. Another way to look at it: Elements closest to their original natural state vs. elements manipulated by mankind to a degree which makes them feel altered beyond recognition from their original state.
I would also say the work of Norm Architects use very limited but well considered material palettes. … but totally agree is very hard to make work in “normal” homes!
