Lauren Liess, Synaesthesia, and The Skirted Roundtable

 

 

This week on The Skirted Roundtable, we interviewed interior designer and blogger Lauren Liess.  You are probably familiar with Lauren’s fabulous blog, Pure Style Home, where she shows the design work she’s done for clients and for herself.  Last year the Liess family bought a split level house near Washington DC.   The house was stuck in a time warp – it looked like Rob or Laura Petrie might still be living there.  Within just a few months, Lauren totally transformed her house into a magazine-worthy place.   In fact, Better Homes and Gardens recently photographed it for their upcoming Christmas issue!    On Pure Style Home and on The Skirted Roundtable, Lauren shares all her tips and innovative ideas that went into the renovation of her split level.   It’s impossible to single out any room – they are all fabulous, from the foyer to the living room to the kitchen and even to the nursery.    Pictures of her house are on the Skirted Roundtable blog HERE. 

 

 

The transformation of her foyer – Lauren tells us how she did it while she was 9 months pregnant!

 

Besides decorating, we also talked a bit about a condition that Lauren has – called Synaesthesia.   I had never heard of this before, but a few months ago, Lauren described it in detail on her blog, HERE.   Apparently, it is a neurological condition where the five senses become mixed together.  Someone with this condition SEES letters and numbers in colors.  Some people with Synaesthesia perceive time visually - they see days and months in three dimension.   There are at least sixty different ways that Synaesthesia manifests itself:  some people taste colors, some taste music.    Most with the condition have at least two different manifestations of it, as does Lauren.  One in 23 are thought to have the condition and it tends to runs in families.   Woman have it in much greater numbers than men.   Some famous artists and musicians believed to be synaesthetes are  Ludwig Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, David Hockney, and Vincent Van Gogh.  Amazingly, Lauren didn’t know she was unusual until she took a class in college and the professor started lecturing about it.  Lauren just believed that everyone saw letters and numbers in colors.  After talking about it on The Skirted Roundtable, both Linda and Megan thought they had a mild form of it.   I am totally immune to it – but I wish I DID have it!!! 

Here is how one person describes his Synaesthesia HERE:

 

 

 

Do you have Synaesthesia?  Take this test to find out:

Looking at the chart below, you should see very easily that some 5’s are black and a few 5’s are red.  This is how a normal person would perceive this chart.  You just SEE the red 5’s – you don't have to examine each 5 to determine if it is black or red – you can see this automatically.

 

 

Now, look at this chart below – do you see all the numbers as black?  If so, you probably do not have this condition.   If you DO have it, you would see the 2’s and 5’s as different colors, just as you did in the chart above!

 

 

To listen to this week’s Skirted Roundtable with Lauren, go HERE.   To visit her blog, Pure Style Home, go HERE.  To read her own account of her experience with Synaesthesia, go HERE.

 

NOTE:   If you are interested in hearing any particular blogger be interviewed on a future Skirted Roundtable – leave us a comment on The Skirted Roundtable’s comment section.  As usual, thank you for your continued support – we greatly appreciate it.    And don’t forget, The Skirted Roundtable is available on I-Tunes!!!