What's Your Interior Design Style? Easy Tips for Learning Your Style
Have you ever had one of those items that you purchased and returned because you loved it in the store but not in your home? And then you return it and purchase another only to find the same issue when you get home. The cycle repeats until you find one eventually or you just give up and move on to something else. Most often it’s not because your ability to pick one item has diminished. It’s far more significant – you likely don’t understand your interior design style.
If that’s you and you’re nodding your head, you’re not alone. The world of interior design is immense. There’s HGTV and that alone can have you changing your mind regularly. We watch Joanna create a fabulous modern farmhouse style home and we want it. But then we watch Sarah create a room full of pattern and colour and we want that. It can be design overload, even for designers.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND YOUR INTERIOR DESIGN STYLE
1/ COLLECT WHAT YOU LOVE –
If you’re not an interior designer there’s no reasonable expectation that you could or should understand all the interior design styles that exist, let alone understand how to narrow down your own style.
Start by spending time on Pinterest or flipping through magazines. Although I do love HGTV, in this case it won’t be useful so skip it for now. Use anything that has a way of collecting inspiration.
If you’re using Pinterest start a board specifically for this exercise. If you’re going to be using images you already have saved, create a folder on your desktop to store these images.
2/ SAVE THEM ALL –
Don’t spend too much time on this step. Just let it happen. When you see an image you like, pin it. If you’re looking through magazines, tear the page or take a photo and add it to your folder. Don’t do anything else until you have a robust folder or board of images. I would recommend a minimum of 30 images before you move on.
3/ ANALYZE THEM –
Now put on your detective hat and let’s see where there are similarities in the interior design style of these images. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are there similar colours emerging here? Ie white walls, navy sofa, etc
- What is the consistent wood tone? This is more revealing than you would think so pay close attention to this one. Do you have more images with bleached oak? Walnut? Not much wood but a lot of painted wood?
- What about fabrics? Do you see more patterned or plain fabrics? If they lean towards patterned, what type of pattern? Stripes, florals, geometric patterns?
- What is the furniture layout? This one can be trickier but it’s very revealing. Do you love rooms with oversized sectionals or do you gravitate towards two sofas facing each other? A formal dining room that is separate or do you like an open concept kitchen with eating area?
While you’re making these discoveries, write it down. The more aware you are of these details, the more you’ll start to notice.
4/ MAKE THE MATCH -
Now the fun part begins. You’re going to do image searches either online or on Pinterest using just the interior design styles as the search term. Search one at a time and see if you can find the same patterns that you have written down. Here is a list of the most common interior design styles:
- TRADITIONAL
- TRANSITIONAL
- MID-CENTURY MODERN
- CONTEMPORARY
- MODERN FARMHOUSE
- GLAM (also search HOLLYWOOD REGENCY)
- COASTAL (also search WEST COAST CONTEMPORARY)
Let’s use this image as an example below. If I were helping you analzye this room I’d take note of all these individual pieces that stand out to me:
- Dark walls
- Crown moulding
- Patterned drapery
- Tufted ottomans
- Patterned rug
- Nail head details
- Warm gold details
I can see that this is a traditional home but it might fall into transitional depending on what the rest of the home looks like. If you were in love with this room but you still couldn’t determine what the style is, here are some useful search questions that might help:
- Interior design style tufted furniture
- Interior design style crown moulding
If you love this image and suspect it might be a traditional space, search “traditional living room” and see what you find. You might find a tufted sofa with yellow walls and silver accessories.
It will never be a perfect match but do another search and you might see that tufted furniture is a common denominator in traditional or transitional spaces. Now move on to nail head detail. Where do you see that emerge? Eventually you’ll piece together a style and it will be clear that it falls into one (maybe two) categories.
YOU KNOW YOUR INTERIOR DESIGN STYLE. NOW WHAT?
So why is it useful to know your style? Remember the story above about buying and returning one item over and over? This will be a thing of the past once you understand your interior design style.
Sure, you’ll occasionally fall in love with something in the store only to bring it home and discover it’s not a great fit. It’ll be easy now to understand when you get it home why it doesn’t work. And you’ll be less likely to repeat the process. And now that you’re not stuck in the loop of confusion you can spend more time working on elevating your space.
Now you can shop with ease because you’re armed with information. It’s perfectly okay to love more than one style however, understanding what you’re trying to create in your space is important.
If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of this, I can fast track all this learning and help you understand your design style quickly. Whether you’re local or live in another part of the world reach out and see how we can work together.
Kristina
