Have you ever wondered if your friends can recognize your personality based on the interior design of your home? In this article, we’ll explore how to discover the style that best suits you and your home, offering practical tips to start decorating with flair.
Quick Tips for Successful Decorating
Avoiding the Most Common Decorating Mistakes
To steer clear of falling into the trap of personality-less decor, it’s important to:
- Avoid Pre-packaged Furniture: Resist the urge to purchase furniture presented as standard packages without customization options.
- Choose Mindfully, Not Just Based on Trends: Don’t let trends dictate your choices. Consult with an expert who considers your tastes and needs.
- Engage a Professional: The expertise of a professional can transform your home into a unique space that reflects your personality.
- Be Authentic: Don’t be afraid to express your personal tastes and vision. Whatever style resonates with you, from minimalist to shabby chic, it’s crucial that your home truly reflects who you are.
By following these tips, you can create a space that truly speaks of you and your uniqueness.
Practical Examples of Stylish Interior Design
The key to satisfying interior design lies in your personal taste and the desire for a unique interior, often characterized by a blend of different styles. Let’s consider a practical example to understand the concept of mixing styles in home decor.
Let’s imagine Maria, a person with a sweet, romantic, and dynamic character. What style could reflect her personality?
Maria might find fulfillment in a bedroom characterized by a contemporary canopy bed frame (dynamic and romantic), light fabrics reminiscent of the imperial era (sweet and romantic), and a neoclassical bed (sweet), embellished with cutting-edge accessories (dynamic).
It’s likely that Maria isn’t drawn to either the cold contemporary minimalism or the baroque opulence. Maria’s room isn’t defined by a single style, but rather by a harmonious mix of influences, where empire, neoclassical, and contemporary elements blend with a touch of fashion, creating an environment that reflects the facets of her personality.
In fact, if we consider the definition of ‘style’ as ‘the distinctive imprint that characterizes a school, an artistic tradition, or the author’s personality’ and that of ‘personality’ as ‘what distinguishes a person from other individuals,’ we notice that the meaning of one reflects in the other. Your style can embrace different aesthetic nuances, where elements such as clarity, rigor, opulence, lightness, and elegance coexist harmoniously in the same environment.
But how do you find your character’s mantra and therefore your own decorating style?
Simple and Quick Ideas to Find Your Interior Design Style
Step 1: Imagine Colors, Shapes, and Decorations
Visualizing colors, shapes, and decorations that you believe can represent your personality will help define your interior design style.
Begin with a brief brainstorming session, jotting down on a blank sheet all the adjectives or expressions you feel identify you. Involve a trusted person to gain different perspectives. Then, review the list and discard words that don’t fully reflect your essence.
Don’t worry if this process may seem disconnected from interior design; eventually, you’ll see how everything ties back to your inner style. Once you’ve filled the sheet with terms and colors that feel like you, move on to the next step.
Step 2: Use Search Engines to Find Decorating Inspirations
Using search engines can be a great way to find personalized decorating ideas.
Start by conducting an online search using your favorite color and your main attribute followed by the words ‘decor,’ ‘furnishings,’ or ‘furniture.’ For example, if your favorite color is pink and you identify as sweet, romantic, and dynamic, you might type ‘sweet pink furnishings’ into the Google search box.
You’ll explore a range of results including not only furniture images but also items that reflect your style. Save the images you like the most or take screenshots for future reference.
Continue this process for all the attributes that characterize your personality. You can perform this action on traditional search engines as well as social platforms like Pinterest, where you can create themed boards to gather your favorite inspirations.
Step 3: Save Images of Favorite Products
After reviewing images of décor that you like, select the top five and include one or two images of other products that caught your eye during the search. They could be images of French pastry sweets if they inspire you, as in Maria’s case.
An important tip is not to limit yourself to the first page of search results. Explore at least until the third page to discover additional options.
Remember to save or take screenshots of the products you’ve chosen to revisit later.
Step 3 (additional): Focus on the Environment to be Furnished
Photograph or draw the interior of the room you want to furnish with furniture and furnishings that reflect your personality. Print the image or create a new note on your smartphone for a visual reference of the empty space.
Pair this document with the brainstorming sheet and the images of furniture you selected during the search. This will help you visualize how the different elements integrate into the environment and make more informed decisions about your personalized furnishings.
Step 4: Create Your Personal Moodboard
Review the images selected during your search and identify the furniture items that stood out to you the most. Paste or place these images on the photo or note of the environment you’ve chosen to furnish.
By associating the attributes that characterize your personal style with each detail of the environment, such as the room’s wall, you can create a deeper connection between your tastes and your decorating choices. For example, if you identify as sweet and romantic, you might associate the color pink with a wall of the room.
Select the furniture you identified during the online search that you like the most. Place them in the environment along with the two inspiration images that resonated positively with you.
Once the moodboard is complete, print it out. You’ll see how your blank sheet or note transforms into a personalized moodboard that reflects your unique style.
The moodboard is a fundamental tool used by interior design and fashion design experts to create personalized and well-curated furnishings. It will help you visualize and coordinate the various elements of the decor, ensuring a harmonious end result that aligns with your personality.
Where to Buy: Manufacturer or Retail Giant?
After defining your interior design style through the moodboard and collaborating with industry experts, it’s time to decide where to purchase the furniture and furnishings that will make your space unique. Here’s a brief overview of the differences between buying from artisan producers and large retailers:
Artisan Producers:
- They focus on small-scale production and use traditional techniques, allowing for high customization of the product in terms of materials, dimensions, shapes, and finishes.
- Some dynamic artisan producers collaborate with a network of complementary experts to offer processes that require the use of innovative machinery.
- They tend to have longer production times, covering the medium and long term.
Large Retailers:
- They produce on a large scale.
- They do not involve third parties for any collaborations outside of their internal production.
- They use their own materials, dimensions, shapes, and finishes, offering a wide choice of preselected variants.
- They have a wide availability of immediate or short-term merchandise.
The choice between artisan producers and large retailers will depend on your needs, preferences, and budget. Artisan producers offer high customization and a more artisanal approach, while large retailers can provide a greater variety of products at competitive prices and with faster delivery times. Carefully examining both options will help you make the best choice to realize your furnishing project.
Finding Your Interior Design Style
After following the various steps with us to discover your interior design style – whether it’s shabby chic, nautical, classic, or something else – you’ll understand that to give personality to your home, it’s not enough to appreciate a single style. It’s important to explore all aesthetic canons that reflect you, considering that we live in a society that offers us a wide range of stimuli and possibilities for uniquely personalized décor.
If you found our article helpful or would like to share with us photos of your interior design style, feel free to write to us at bazzi@bazziinteriors.com. We’ll be happy to review them and propose highly personalized solutions if you’re interested!”
