How To Find Your Ideal Interior Style
So, you’re planning your new build or thinking of starting a home reno or décor refresh, but you’re not sure you even know what your style is. Well rest assured, you’re not alone! This is one of the most common things I hear from my clients and it’s easy to understand why. Unless you are a designer trained in the nuances of interior design, or you have spent countless hours consuming interior content, it’s unlikely you are ever going to feel 100 per cent confident in selecting the right colours, finishes, and furniture for your home. This uncertainty can be worsened by the countless homewares and furniture stores that are updating their styles each season, plus an endless list of designers, influencers and bloggers all talking about what the latest trends are. But as trends come and go season by season, how do you know where to start when designing something meant to last years?
My best advice is to take the time to get a good understanding of what your overall style is for your home before you start selecting your pieces or finishes. This will help to ensure consistency throughout and avoid unsightly clashes or the expense of making changes down he track. Once you understand your style, you can then select your larger key pieces in colours or styles that are timeless so that if you wish to update your home each season, this can be done by updating the smaller, more affordable pieces, such as soft furnishings and décor. However, it is still advisable to select these pieces with your overall style in mind to ensure the overall feel of your home remains consistent.
So where should you begin when trying to determine your ideal interior style? Follow a few steps to get started.
Take A Quiz!
Why not start by taking an interior design style quiz? Answer a few questions, select a few images and the quiz generates your ideal style. Seems simple right? Well, there are A LOT of quizzes available online if you do a Google search. I did quite a few myself as “research” (plus mostly just for my own fun!) and there are definitely a few of quizzes that are just not useful at all. Luckily for you, I have listed a few below that I thought were better for you to try.
Style Curator - https://stylecurator.com.au/your-interior-style-quiz/
The Ginger Home - https://thegingerhome.com/interior-design-style-quiz
Insidesign - https://insidesign.com.au/how-to-find-interior-decor-style/
Take A Look At The Pieces You Already Have
Another very simple way to get an idea of your style is to look around your home and notice the pieces you already have. Which are your favourites pieces and why? What are their colours and shapes? Is your favourite piece your ornate antique daybed or is it your sleek, linen sofa? Take note of the pieces you love and what it is about them that you love, and this will start to give you an idea of the basic colour tones or features you are drawn to.
Don’t forget to check out your décor items too. Do you tend to choose décor in an array of colour or do you prefer to layer lots of neutrals? Do you often choose pieces with bleached timber or do you gravitate towards darker wood tones? While you definitely don’t need everything in your house to match and be the same wood or colour tone (check out my blog on Interior Design rules to break here to find out why), this information will give you a little insight into what styles you are most drawn to.
Even looking at the clothing in your wardrobe can be so telling. There is usually a direct correlation between the fashion you like to wear and the interior styles you like to surround yourself with, so look through your wardrobe and take notice of the styles and colours you see. Take my wardrobe, for example, it is a sea of neutrals with contrasting blacks, plus pops of green and earth-tones, in mostly relaxed modern styles. It could not reflect my interior style more if it tired!
Use Pinterest To Save Images That Resonate
One of my favourite ways to get an in depth understanding of different styles is to turn to Pinterest. In fact, every project I do starts with a Pinterest board. It is a really handy way to accumulate images of all the things you love or group together images of the type of space you want to achieve. But just be warned, Pinterest is addictive and you can lose hours scrolling the endless inspirational images that this platform provides (I am definitely talking from experience here). Simply log in to Pinterest and type in a search term, such as “kitchen interiors”. This will provide a pretty broad range of styles. When you find images you like, simply click on “Save” and select “Create Board”. Now you can start adding all of the images you love most to this new board as you find them. You may even notice that the names of the images you save start to provide a clue as to the styles you are drawn to, for example, you might find that a lot of the images you save have a particular style theme, such as coastal or mid-century modern etc.
Just remember that while it is easy to save hundreds of images to a board, the real key to successfully working out your style is in the editing and refining of said board. Make sure you go back through your saved images and try to eliminate all but the images that make your heart sing. If your heart doesn’t sing when you look at it or you’ve changed how you feel about it, delete it! What you will be left with are the core images that represent your style and truly resonate with you.
Check Out A Display
Do you have a free hour or two and would prefer to see and touch different styles in the flesh? Why not check out some display homes? In an effort to appeal to the most amount of people possible, a lot of builders will create two or three display homes in a row in slightly different styles. It can be a really easy (and fun) way to see homes of different styles literally side by side.
Just remember that because of this need to appeal to the masses, you won’t generally find good examples of styles that are deemed less common, such as boho /eclectic or ultra modern. It will, however, help to show less specific things such as you whether you like a lighter or darker colour palette etc.
And to all my friends who live in regional areas and don’t readily have access to display homes, most builders now also provide a 3D virtual tour on their websites so you can view their displays virtually.
Hire An Interior Designer
Okay, I know this last step sounds a little self serving, but if you are really feeling stuck trying to work out your style then the best thing you can do is speak to an interior designer. A designer can help you determine your ideal style, help you make informed decisions, get the most bang for your buck and even save you money in the long run by ensuring you avoid costly mistakes.
The first step is to book in for your free discovery phone call so we can chat about your project and how I can best help you. This can be booked online here.
Lastly, remember that like anything, your ideal interior style is not static and will evolve with time. It may not fit perfectly into a particular style genre and may actually be a mix of two or three styles. Your style may even be “out of fashion” this season, but that’s ok. The important thing is that you find what you love because it is your home afterall. As said by Billy Baldwin, an acclaimed designer with a career spanning nearly 50 years, "be faithful to your own taste because nothing you really like is ever out of style."