Low-Maintenance Living

Manhattan designers Russell Groves and Neal Beckstedt have outdone themselves again–their collaborative designs for an industrialist East Hampton, NY house grace the cover of the NYTimes Home and Garden website page today, and for good reason. What makes a house low-maintenance?

The designs, for the exterior, are clean, compact, and a little bit austere. With metal paneling, the house looks well-insulated, but also a bit too modernist and edgy to fit in the standard suburban landscape. It works for the Hamptons, of course, because anything works in the Hamptons if you have the money for it.

For the interior, you want hardwood floors, tall ceilings and white walls for the canvas. The designs should be sleek and un-ornamented. Think basic wood and metal designs with straight lines, all-white sofas and maybe a leather back chair with wood legs, some sparks of color here and there but mostly in the range of white, dark brown and black with metal accents in the shape of lamps and table tops.

The perfect accents for a modernist house: Modernist paintings and photographs, and tall white candles on glass candlesticks. Both bring a different light and energy to the house, which washes over the more basic and plain sofas, walls and colors described above.

How do you transform your home into a Modernist goddess? Here are some thoughts and suggestions:

Candice Olson “Delray” Floor Lamp – 7461FL: $358.00

candice floorlamp