How Your “Comfortable” Home is Holding You Back with Vera Blouin
Interior designer Vera Blouin joins me to talk about her book, “The Reincarnated Room.” Vera sees the home as something that holds the history of who we’ve been, and through design, we can let go of those old layers and create spaces that support who we’re becoming. We explore how materials, light, and texture shape our emotional experience of a room, and why staying “comfortable” can sometimes keep us stuck instead of helping us grow. It’s a thoughtful conversation about how our homes evolve alongside us, and how design can become a tool for stepping into the next chapter of our lives. After our conversation, I slipped in some bonus content, a listener Q&A on what I do in terms of decorating between the holidays.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
On this episode of the Slow Style Home podcast, I sat down with designer Vera Blouin to talk about something that goes far deeper than decorating. Vera has an interesting philosophy about design, one that connects our homes to our inner lives.
Her central idea is that design isn’t simply about improving a room. It’s about transformation.
Vera calls this idea “the reincarnated room,” and our conversation explores what it means to let our homes evolve alongside us.
The Idea of the “Reincarnated Room”
Vera’s book, The Reincarnated Room: Modern Design and Spiritual Renewal, starts with a bold idea: interior design is a form of reincarnation.
What she means by that is this, our homes quietly hold the record of who we’ve been. They hold the objects, habits, and environments that supported earlier chapters of our lives. Over time, those things can start to feel out of alignment with who we’re becoming.
Vera describes the home as a kind of witness to our lives. The energy of old routines, past emotions, and former identities can linger in a space long after we’ve moved beyond them.
So when she talks about “reincarnating a room,” she’s not really talking about the room itself. She’s talking about us. The room simply evolves as we do.
The design process becomes a way of letting go of the past and creating an environment that supports the next version of ourselves.
Rethinking the “Before”
One thing I loved about Vera’s perspective is the way she talks about the “before” stage of design.
We live in a culture obsessed with dramatic before-and-after photos, where the “before” is intentionally made to look awful so the “after” feels more impressive.
But Vera sees the before stage differently.
Instead of judging it, she treats it as a marker in time, a reflection of where you were in your life when that room came together.
Sometimes the room no longer fits simply because life has changed:
Your ambitions have expanded
Your routines are different
You’ve entered a new chapter of life
But the space around you still reflects the old one.
The real challenge, Vera says, isn’t redesigning the room.It’s letting go of the identity attached to the things in it.
Why “Comfort” Can Hold Us Back
Another idea Vera challenges is the word people use most often when describing what they want from their home: comfort.
When I ask people how they want a room to feel, “comfortable” is almost always the answer. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that word is vague and limiting.
Vera takes that idea even further. She argues that comfort can actually be the enemy of transformation.
Comfort is predictable. Comfort is familiar. Comfort keeps everything exactly the same.
But growth rarely happens in that state.
If a home is designed only to keep us comfortable, it can quietly keep us tethered to a version of ourselves we’ve already outgrown.
Transformation requires a little friction, a space that reflects our potential, not just our past.
The Power of Materiality
One of my favorite parts of the conversation was Vera’s focus on materiality, the idea that the materials in our homes affect us physically and emotionally.
We often think about color palettes or pattern palettes when designing a room. But materials deserve just as much attention.
Think about something as simple as a coffee table.
A stone table has weight and permanence.A polished surface feels smooth and frictionless.A rougher material might feel more tactile and grounded.
Those sensory experiences influence how we move through a room and how we feel in it.
Vera takes this concept even further by describing two ways materials affect us:
Materiality as Ritual
Certain materials shape our daily experiences almost subconsciously.
For example:
Stone creates a feeling of permanence
Wood brings warmth
Metal introduces clarity and precision
Textiles create emotional softness
Glass encourages openness
Concrete offers grounding
These materials influence the rhythm of daily life—the feeling of opening linen curtains in the morning or walking barefoot across a stone floor.
Materiality as Spiritual Expression
Materials can also communicate meaning and emotion.
Vera describes them almost like a language:
Brass represents intention
Stone symbolizes legacy
Wood reflects grounding
Fabric expresses comfort
Glass represents clarity
When we choose materials thoughtfully, they begin to shape not just how a room looks, but how we experience it.
One example she shared involved a client who was highly responsive to touch. For him, the design focused on tactile materials and organic textures—so interacting with surfaces in the room became part of a daily grounding ritual.
The Final Step: Integration
Perhaps the most powerful part of Vera’s philosophy is what happens after the design is finished.
She calls this stage integration.
Design doesn’t end when the furniture arrives or the last piece of art goes on the wall. At some point, the designer leaves and the homeowner takes over.
That’s when the real transformation begins.
Vera uses the metaphor of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
During metamorphosis, the caterpillar dissolves completely before transforming. It must let go of everything it once was.
In the same way, when our homes change, we also have to change how we behave within them.
You might create a beautiful, calming space, but if you immediately fall back into the same stressed habits or cluttered patterns, the transformation never fully takes root.
As Vera puts it:
Your actions reveal whether the room’s new identity has truly taken hold.
When the design and the behavior finally align—that’s when the reincarnation is complete.
Designing the Next Chapter
What I loved most about this conversation with Vera Blouin is that it reminds us our homes are never static.
They evolve with us.
Our environments can either anchor us in the past or help us step into who we’re becoming.
And sometimes, changing a room isn’t really about the room at all.
It’s about giving ourselves permission to move forward.
Listener Q&A Finding Beauty in the In-Between: Decorating for the Winter Doldrums
After the sparkle of Christmas fades and before the first bunnies of Easter arrive, many of you, like our listener Ellen, feel stuck in a decorating limbo. In my home, I’ve embraced a Slow Style approach to these "in-between" months. Rather than chasing every minor holiday on the calendar, I prefer to buy fewer, more meaningful things and let them breathe. My secret? I don’t decorate for holidays; I decorate for the season.
Capturing the Winter Glow
During a trip to the National Gallery in London, I was captivated by the paintings of Wright of Derby. His mastery of candlelight, the way it casts a soft, intimate glow on a face or a single object, stayed with me. Since I don’t have a fireplace here in New England, I decided to recreate that warmth on my bookcase vignette.
I pulled out my collection of handmade and brass candlesticks, pairing them with tapers in earthy tones like mustard yellow, burgundy, and deep brown. Because candlelight is quiet and focused, it highlights only what is closest to it, creating tiny pockets of intimacy that help settle the mind during these darker months.
A Palette of Decay and Renewal
Nature isn’t vibrant right now, and I find there is a quiet beauty in that. I look to the "colors of earth" found just outside my door:
Creams and Whites: A nod to the fallen snow.
Shades of Tan and Brown: Honoring the natural cycle of decay.
Mossy Greens: I’ve started tucking in deep, foresty greens through velvet pillows and ceramic vases to signal the renewal that is quietly waiting underground.
Slowing Down with the Handmade
This is a season for self-reflection. To lean into that "quieting down," I surround myself with tactile, handmade items. I bring out my favorite hand-turned wooden bowls and artisanal serving ware—pieces that feel grounded and real.
By focusing on materials and feelings rather than plastic trinkets, the transition from December to April doesn't feel like a chore; it feels like a natural evolution of the home. I hope this inspires you to find the light in the winter doldrums.
Do you have a design dilemma you're chewing on? Send me an email at zandra@slowstylehome.com. I’d love to help you find your flow.
Until Next Time
-Zandra
Links Mentioned In The Episode
Vera’s Website
Vera’s Book
Vera’s Instagram