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Read more about these two and their home life below >>> What is important to you when decorating your home? E: I want the space to feel lived. I'm against matching. In spaces that look like they came as a decorating kit (the curtains match the pillows match the rug) there is no time; instead a sense that there was only one choice made in one store in a cold 'pick your livingroom' fashion. I love spaces that are marked by time, spaces that accumulate. I want everything to have a different time stamp, each object to refer to a different moment, a different experience. Both Duane and I love collecting so our goal in our house was to have it feel warm and collected but not overstuffed. What makes it your special place? E: The house was originally built in 1908 but the floor plan was established in the 1980s. When we got it the only thing the house had going for it was the floor plan. Otherwise, it was falling apart. In doing a full renovation by ourselves we got to put our mark on just about every inch of it. I remember one night where we were mixing floor stains and testing them on the floor of the den to get just the right color. It took ages to figure out the exact color recipe. I think our house feels personal for that reason. There is an intimacy to it, more so than other places I've lived. It's warmer and safer to be there, but I also have to like you more before I invite you in. What is the best thing about living with your bf? E: We have way too much fun together. He's as weird as I am and he doesn't get embarrassed by me, he joins in. The best thing is probably the morning theatrics. The man wakes up as a raving lunatic and it takes him all day to calm down. I'm the exact opposite, I slowly amp up over the course of the day so I think it works well. But he puts on quite a show in the mornings... How do your combined professions as artists effect how you treat one another? E: We play together more than anything else. Most things are treated as play rather than work. Even things like grocery shopping. We are lucky that we get to make art. We are lucky that we get to do most of the things we do and we are lucky to have found each other. He gets tired and grumpy and so do I but a lot of the time we will treat that as a game too, we ham it up. How does that effect your lifestyle? E: We are both scavengers to a certain extent, we like to find things. Our studio is chock full of things, we both have a propensity to rescue objects that may or may not need rescuing. We don't buy new stuff very often, half our furniture was pulled off the side of the road, but we have been very picky about what actually goes in our house. Our house has to be a sanctuary. Most people comment on how much weird stuff we have but it's actually the closest either of us could get to minimalism.... What's your favorite thing about your home life? E: The light in the living room. Cooking in the kitchen with the radio on. Two person dance parties. Hearing Amadeus (our dog) race back and forth down the hall. Lighting fires in the back yard. The window in the pantry. The claw foot tub.
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