Globe Trotters

Seel performed a similar installation for a Chaska couple. This one was called the “away room,” in which three of the four walls are covered with 25 different five-by-seven photographs of their travels. “They also use that room when entertaining to have coffee, dessert, or wine,” Seel says. “They have flavors and liqueurs from their travels.”

Cultural practices often make an impression on travelers and influence home design. Amundson has imported pizza ovens from France so homeowners could cook wood-fired pizzas like those they ate while traveling. Another client bucked the prevalent trend of a large kitchen opening into a family room. “This particular homeowner really wanted the exact opposite of that. They wanted things to be closed off,” Amundson explains. “If you have dinner in the dining room in Europe, you leave it, close the door behind you, and go into another room for tea. Now you don’t have to sit around a table of leftover food. You can close it off and not see that mess on the table.”

Seel’s former–New Zealander client incorporated deep teal greens and aqua blues common to that country into the design of the home. In the kitchen Seel used hand-glazed tiles the family had brought from New Zealand. Another client had lived in Ireland and wanted to remember the charming pubs she visited there, so Seel created a kitchen island modeled after one. Another client wanted her St. Cloud home to replicate her childhood home in Mexico City, so Seel added ironwork, stairway spindles, and hand-painted tiles. “She brought that memory of another country into the concept of her home,” Seel says.

Although integrating your traveling mementos will personalize your home, designers agree that it is possible to overdo it. “One of things I always tell people is to really think about how something is going to translate back to Minnesota,” Ramsey Engler says. “A lot of times things look very trite and touristy. It’s important to not go too overboard in any one style or culture. Try to carefully select one or two objects from each trip.”

Overdone theme rooms have also become passé, La Nasa says. “Instead of having one room that is completely dedicated to a   certain look or certain travel, some of those things might be scattered throughout the home,” she says. “All those things definitely add character and a lot of uniqueness and meaning to clients.”

Similarly, you want to keep proportion in mind. “I think the most common mistake people make is putting a piece of work on a wall that’s too large [for it] so that you can’t really appreciate it, or the opposite—hanging something way too large in a tiny space,” Seel says.

However you choose to represent your travels in your home, let intuition be your guide. “Part of my goal is to get [clients] to buy things that are more instinctual for them,” Seel says. “I always remind them to keep their eyes open to bring back things that might remind them of their experience. Objects remind us of a place, how it looks, how it smells. Putting eyes on it in an everyday environment is so rewarding.”