Nancy Taylor, Interior Designer

Stacy Kunstel, Homes Editor: You had other careers before settling into interior design. You were a nurse, mother, wife, and you owned an antiques store. What drew you to interior design?
Nancy Taylor: I think it started because of my decision to make nests, homes, my calling in life. And that came out of being comforted and consoled by just having a nice room to live in myself and knowing that I could retreat to that room, regardless of how rocky things might be outside of that room, and how I could feel restored by being in that environment. There was just a day when I decided that that's what I would be doing for the rest of my life.

SK: You work not only in New England, but extensively in Florida, the Bahamas, even London and with clients from Hong Kong. What guides you to create successful rooms?
NT: The architecture and the scale of the room. It really tells you what kinds of pieces should be in there, how big they should be, how they're going to sit in that room to make that room very comfortable to use and also beautiful. I'll draw all of that up before I even start to pull anything like colors and fabrics. I get the scale of the pieces in place and their relationship one to the others. And then I will go to this house or this project in my mind, and start to go through the wings in a way that's a little hard to describe. I definitely have the essence of the room in my mind and I'm looking for things that I just feel want to be part of that. I'll see what I think is a beautifully designed fabric and I'll look and say, “In which color is it most successful”? And I may pull twenty or thirty or forty fabrics and put them up on the walls and eventually they reorganize themselves into little groups. It might be a strong beige and then a sharp gold, and maybe then a dark brown. They're just there because they enhance one another but not because they're all out of the same piece.

SK: That's definitely part of honing your practice.
NT: One of the things I do with my work is I go back after two years and sit down with the clients and ask them, “Which things here do you wish were done differently? Which things most succeed for you that you wouldn't change?” That's a reality check.

SK: Is that why you think you've maintained repeat clients and you continue to do other homes for them?
NT: Always. I can almost tell by looking at people, and looking at their wardrobe, what their furniture should look like too, because it would be appropriate with the way they present themselves. I don't think that a person who is really working on their own style and their own life, and trying to make an identity that's authentic, should have a hugely varied look between how they present themselves and how they live. Even though you can do that in so many different ways—a country house, a chic apartment in the city. It can be totally different styles, but it will look like that person owns that property.

SK: But then I think we've sort of been conditioned, especially with all this new design knowledge we're exposed to, that our style or our look has to constantly be evolving to keep up with our lives.
NT: I don't necessarily think that's true at all. I think the Europeans are always such a good example of being able to hold on to their treasures and evolve at the same time. Their homes look very chic made up of conglomerations of things from other permutations of themselves.

SK: They've chosen the right pieces whether they be from different eras, different styles.
NT: And it all looks enviable! It all looks like the stuff you'd run with when the marriage starts to break up.

SK: We live in this world where imperfect objects are forced upon us every day. How can we be more selective?
NT: Part of it is rejecting things that don't speak to you with that quiet, clean voice. Reject the ordinary. Don't embrace things that don't speak to you. They can be new or old. It seems it's just easier to find old pieces. It seems people just had more time and more grace.