Forget the floor plans. Arrange the furniture where it is the most comfortable and will look best.

Nothing comes cheap, though the educated eye will always spot very nice things for the least money.

When Van Truex defined the difference between designing and decorating, he used the analogy of preparing a roast of beef. Design, he said, is the preparation and cooking; decorating is the final seasoning, the savoring.

Decorators should always remember that letting a client see too many beautiful things is a pitfall.

So many people arrange furniture in order to see what's going on outside. But why? The view isn't going anywhere.

You cannot make a modern apartment out of a traditional space.

Too much of what passes for design now is theater. It's one thing to be eccentric- and by the way, most eccentrics tend to be rather well-educated people - and quite another to be a faddist, by which I mean someone who tries to conjure a totally foreign aesthetic in a misplaced environment.