The Domino Dream

Sep 5

My Nana painted her fan black.

Just an ordinary white box fan, humming in the corner, nothing special until suddenly one day it was black. “I saw it in Domino,” she said, like she was telling me how to boil an egg. Casual witchcraft. The world twitched. Wait—you can just change things because they’re boring? You can take the invisible object and make it sing? You can interfere?

That fan is the first time I realized I’m allowed to touch reality. Paint it. Nudge it. Make it more fun, more interesting, even if other people raise their eyebrows and say, why bother. Nana was a home ec teacher—practical to the bone—but she grinned when her friends called it strange. “It’s fun to do something wild,” she told me, and then taught me to mood board on the kitchen table with glue sticks and Wheat Thins and magazine piles that collapsed like little cities. Collecting pictures is a kind of prayer.

Then she showed me Libertine in Domino: the giant splash of art on a gallery wall that looked like someone threw paint and confidence at the same time. The feeling hit bone. Whatever that is, I want it. Not the exact piece—permission. Audacity. Rooms that hum.

So this is me, planting a flag…

I am going to make my house worthy of Domino.

Yes, I’m doing the Babe Ruth point-to-the-outfield move. Everyone else plays it coy: “oh my gosh Apartment Therapy just dropped in my inbox, what a surprise” or the humble brag about a client’s feature. That’s cute. Like the humble violinist who claims they never practice — meanwhile they’re secretly practicing until their fingers bleed and then shrugging it off like they were just pruning rose bushes.

That’s the energy here. I’m not pretending. I’m not casual. I’m obsessed, and I’m announcing it out loud. That’s the goal. That’s the obsession. And you get to watch me try. Maybe I’ll strike out, maybe I’ll hit the damn ball into the parking lot. Either way, it’ll be fun.

I’m standing here, pointing, saying it out loud: I want my weird, maximalist, audacious, joyful house in Domino.

Not because I need clients, not because I’m selling anything, not because I crave the algorithm.

Because twelve‑year‑old me circled pages like scripture and thought, maybe if I get really weird and really true, I’ll belong in there one day. Because I want to test if the inside of me—the LA‑meets‑UK, Wes‑Anderson‑symmetry, Reath‑Design‑pattern‑bravery, Beata‑Heuman‑oddball—can be built on the outside and photographed so it vibrates in a stranger’s chest. Connection over perfection. Story over stuff. It’s like wanting to make a movie that is commercially viable not because it plays it safe but because it is so good, so original, and so straight-from-the-heart that it can’t be ignored. That’s the dream for this house too. And there’s nothing wrong with honing the craft, wanting to make something—something—that has weight, that feels inevitable once it’s in the world.

And yes, part of me wants to feel cool. Anyone who claims they don’t is doing performance art. In college I pierced my septum solely to look cool; my boyfriend wanted a nobler reason, “Do it for yourself,” he said. But I can’t see it without a mirror. Style is how we broadcast our insides. The holy grail is when inside and outside actually match—when a room finally looks the way your spirit sounds.

What I’m Doing (for real, not vibes)

I’m going to meticulously, obsessively, joyfully edit, plan, redecorate, and strategize my home into a magazine‑worthy story. Not a show home. A story. That means:

Editing like a director. Pulling everything out, then putting only the necessary weird back in. No clutter for clutter’s sake; every odd thing earns its line in the script.
Color tension, always. If there isn’t a little delicious friction—tomato orange vs mint, muddy olive vs Liberty florals—then it’s not cooked yet.
Scale games. Oversized coffee table? Tiny lamp on a hulking dresser? One theatrical gesture per room that makes the frame breathe.
Outdoor comes inside (and vice versa). Patio chairs at the dining table, striped loungers by a bookcase, a happy plaid rug under a moody sofa. Rules go in the compost.
North light triage. If a room faces north, I warm it, wool it, lamp it, and stop letting grayscale drain the blood from the scene.
Vignettes that wink. Micro‑stories on mantels and side tables that say, “A human lives here and she’s unserious about serious things.”
Photograph like it’s cinema. Symmetry when it helps. Off‑kilter when it thrills. Negative space on purpose. Curtains steamed. Lamps dimmed. Cords invisible. Citrus in a bowl only if the citrus has a personality.
Pitch kit ready. Captions that tell a story, not a shopping list. A press PDF that looks like a love letter.

The Plan (accountability in public)

I’m turning this into a series you can follow, cheer for, roast lovingly, and steal from. Not mapped out like a syllabus, but unfolding like chapters in a messy book I haven’t finished writing yet. It begins with the cold splash of assessing the damage—looking at my house with editor’s eyes and asking what is Domino and what isn’t. From there, we’ll wander into color fights, oddball objects, north‑light rescues, oversized gestures, camera tricks, all the way through to the press packet and the nerve‑wracking send.

Why Domino? Because it has always been my north star. This isn’t a play to win magazines in general, or to hedge my bets across publications. It’s truly a dream I’ve had since I was twelve, circling pages like scripture. Not a gimmick, not a strategy—an actual thing I’m doing. Domino first, because Nana. Others if it makes sense. Rejections, replies, revisions—reported honestly.

And then we loop. Rooms evolve. I evolve. The series keeps going until the story lands on glossy paper—or until I’ve built something I love so much the paper becomes secondary.

How You Can Participate

This isn’t a group project. But I do want witnesses. Companions. Co‑conspirators in spirit.

Share your fan moment — that first time you realized you could just change something ordinary and make it yours.
Confess your own ridiculous glossy‑page dream. Maybe it’s Domino, maybe it’s AD, maybe it’s wallpapering your entire bathroom in Lisa Frank stickers. Say it out loud.
Cheer me on when I’m knee‑deep in chaos. Roast me when I get too precious. Hold me accountable if I go dark.
Try your own experiments in parallel if you want, but don’t send me your mood boards. I’m not taking notes. I’m chasing my own.

Promise

I’m not promising perfect rooms. I’m promising process—obsessive and human and occasionally unhinged. I will show the tries, the failures, the second tries, the spirals, and the click when it finally becomes a frame that hums.

The fan is black now. The point isn’t the paint; it’s the permission. This is me taking it.

I know this is a big dream and I’m far off from the goal, but I’m doing it anyway. No ra‑ra finale, just the truth of starting where I am and pointing toward what I want.

Welcome to The Domino Dream.

Am I crazy? Are you excited? Am I the only one with this dream? Do you think I can do it? I want to hear it. Lay it on me.

And if you do share, make it public — comments, not private replies — so your thoughts live in the world, not just in my inbox. I don’t know if you’re there unless I hear from you!