The Things That Matter: Summary & Key Insights

My love affair with objects began early. I grew up in a family that didn’t see things as disposable—they were storytellers, markers of continuity. My mother was a decorator, which meant that even as a child I was constantly watching spaces transform. She taught me that rooms should feel lived in, not staged, and that good design has to speak. I remember my father’s home differently: quieter, more orderly. Between the two, I learned the tension that still informs my work—the balance between structure and emotion, between form and feeling.

Travel became my second education. When I studied abroad and wandered through markets in Asia or Europe, I learned that every object carries a sense of place, the hand of its maker, a trace of its culture. I wasn’t buying things just because they were beautiful; I was collecting evidence of experience. That early curiosity—about where something came from, who made it, and how it felt to touch—became the foundation of how I approach every project. Design, for me, starts with empathy and story.

What we keep in our homes are, in a way, memory containers. Every piece serves as an anchor to a specific time, emotion, or connection. When I walk into my living room and see a photograph of my late partner Fernando, or the small fragments of seashells collected on a trip we shared, I don’t just see décor—I feel time folding in on itself. Those objects make invisible feelings tangible.

Memory, however, can be complex. Some things we hold on to out of comfort; others out of grief. And still, the act of keeping is an affirmation: it means we acknowledge that our past is part of our present. I’ve often told clients that a home should reflect every chapter of their lives, not only the happy ones. When we allow both joy and pain to coexist in our surroundings, our spaces become more human. That authenticity, more than perfection, is what gives a home its soul.