Vern Yip - Vern Yips vacation at home : design ideas for creating your everyday getaway

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or beautiful.

William Morris

My home is my favorite place on the planet and my ultimate retreat. Id rather be there than anywhere else, including an exotic location or a luxury resort or five-star hotel. That doesnt mean that I dont love visiting new places and staying at beautiful properties. I still get incredibly excited about visiting somewhere for the first time and discovering something new! I always find myself arriving at the same conclusion: my home is equally as relaxing and enjoyable, but with the major advantage of being specifically tailored to my family and me. The things that we love are there. Everything, from furniture to artwork to storage, has been arranged to help us function as smoothly and enjoyably as possible. All our items also hold special memories and have real meaning to us.

In fact, each time I walk through my front door, I am immediately more relaxed, rejuvenated, and reenergized because my home has been purposefully designed to receive me warmly. It wasnt always that way. It took time to tailor it, both functionally and aesthetically. It required thought to address design changes to the bones of our home that were making it more stressful than necessary: a backyard dominated by high-maintenance landscaping; a small and isolated kitchen with insufficient storage; a front entrance that ungraciously dumped you into a cramped hallway; recessed can lights sporting incandescent bulbs that seemingly burned out every other week; and no clear storage system for the necessary stuff that comes with having two babies only fourteen months apart. All of it contributed to an ever-growing to-do list and a disorganized, challenging, and unpleasant environment. Quite frankly, I was starting to despise spending our precious family time in this house. After figuring out what to do, instituting changes was both relatively easy and quick, and I can say with confidence that our home is now a stress-free place that supports and nurtures the entire family. Its effectively become a vacation home that we happen to live in every day.

So how did I figure out what changes to make to create an everyday home that would relax and rejuvenate us the way being at a top vacation property does? Aside from ensuring that our home contained only the items that we needed and loved, I logged a lot of travel hours, spent a lot of nights away from home, and took plenty of notes on all the things that worked in the properties I visited, as well as many of the things that didnt work. In fact, Ive been on the road for nearly three decades (mostly for work, but occasionally for pleasure) and have had the opportunity to stay at many of the best properties in the worldand some not-so-great onesall with lessons to learn. Travel is an essential part of my life and one of the key ways that I stay inspired.