With our Book Club series, we hand over the proverbial mic to our Experts—letting them share their work, their thought process, and their best tips, all in their own words. The following is an excerpt from Kirsten Blazek’s book A Rebel by Design, published this month with Rizzoli.

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There is simply nothing that bonds and shapes and forms a whole picture more than the details.

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The eye gazes upon something and responds to it in a macro way, but it is the little details dancing together that matter. You wouldn’t be wowed by a beautiful dress without the perfect shoes, earrings, rings, nails, and hair adorning the person wearing it. When you look at these pictures of my work, and hopefully have a positive emotional response, that’s the room glowing through its own intricate details. In my line of work, there are no accidents or last-minute random add-ons to a house or a room. Everything you see was meticulously thought out and planned before it was ever incorporated into the design.

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Sometimes the details in design can help to heal a person when they walk into a finished work for the first time. This is one of my favorite projects for that very reason. My client had just lost his husband and decided that updating his midcentury house would help him work through his grief. I believe our houses are living, breathing entities that take on the energy of their owner, so the solemnity of this job hit me straight through the heart. The details for this job were both deep, rich, sexy colors and bold lines that were in keeping with his taste. The graphic panda marble splashing all the way to the shower is an example of this.

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Through these details, we were able to flavor his space and give it a feeling of something fresh ahead for him. Design can heal and the details can provide comforting companionship.

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My art is sometimes the painstaking obsession over every inch of every detail that goes into creating a successful and pleasing design. My imagination runs wild sometimes, but it is always grounded in a plan. There isn’t too much in this life that does not require attention to detail, and that is most certainly the case for me. When it feels right, it looks right, and when it looks and feels right, the details are doing their magic on your eyes.

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Buy A Rebel by Design and meet with Kirsten to get personalized advice for your own home.