Here's How to Design a Room Using Healing Crystals
Considering you're reading House Beautiful, I can assume you believe in the importance of creating a space that reflects your interests and brings you happiness. So, if you're a believer in the healing and energy power of crystals, it only makes sense that these would play into your home decor as well. That's what designers Elizabeth Kohn and Rashia Bell are banking on-their new firm, The Cristalline, creates interiors based on crystal energy.
The duo has long been fascinated by crystals, though it took a bit of time for them to translate this interest into the design world. "I can remember in middle school I’d be on the playground, and I’d look at the rocks and find crystals and bring them home," Kohn tells House Beautiful. "I had an aunt who had a really cool mineral collection, and I loved that."
Bell, who had also loved stones as a child, rekindled that interest when working for a jeweler who used crystals in her work. Intrigued, she studied to become a trained crystal healer around the time she also went back to school for interior design. These two interests would end up colliding. "I started to think of stones from an energy perspective, and how that can be expanded outward and applied to design," Bell explains.
Meanwhile, Kohn had honed her eye working for Cullman & Kravis before starting her own design firm. Recalls Bell: "Liz and I met right when I was diving back into crystals, so we were just having conversations about design and spaces and why they work, why they don’t."
Now, the two have combined their shared interests at a time when they think their specialty is in more demand than ever. "With technology and the fast pace of the world, all these things are moving so quickly and moving around us that are out of our control," explains Bell. "Mindfulness and a practice surrounding that is something you can effect and create and structure in your life."
To do that, Bell and Kohn begin their design consultation like most designers do: By listening to what their clients are drawn to and how they use their space. After that, though, the process takes a turn away from the norm, when Bell gives each client a crystal healing session.
From there, the duo is able to decide which stones best align with their clients' tastes and needs. "There are two perspectives: a need-based way or an energetic way, as far as who are you as an individual, what’s going on in your life," Bell says. "Yes, certain stones do certain things-selenite is amazing for energy clearing, that can affect air purification. Black tourmaline or smoky quartz absorb electromagnetic frequencies, so those are great to have in rooms where you have your router or your cable box-but crystals are also about connection, so you need to have things you're drawn to."
So far, Bell and Kohn have outfitted several residential projects, as well as a studio for fitness guru Taryn Toomey-each making use of a carefully-selected range of stones meant to enhance the spaces respective purposes.
At the end of the day, as Kohn sees it, these ideas fit neatly into the practice of interior design. "It's listening to what clients want and then bringing your expertise into it and shifting energy so it's aligned and they feel wonderful in their space."
Adds Bell: "Crystal work is helping people tap into their intuition. And that’s what you do as a designer too. Your client will end up in the space and say ‘Oh my God, I didn’t even know I wanted this.’ They just didn’t know how to translate those intuitive cues."
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