Your home should tell the story of who you are.
Does your home truly feel like you?
When you come home do you feel as though this environment is yours and tells your story not somebody else’s?
So many people get stuck in the false notion that their home should look like someone else’s, or that they should hire a designer to make their home beautiful by telling them what to do. But more important than professional guidance is your intention for your environment!
This doesn’t mean you should stop looking at decor inspiration on websites and magazines, but it does mean you should be looking at these inspiration images differently and with a different mindset.
Instead of finding some favorite images of spaces and trying to emulate them specifically to create the “right space”, you should collect a wide array of images you feel joy looking at, lay them out and analyze what about each image makes you happy and most importantly why. Write these impressions down for yourself and see what patterns you see between the images! These commonalities that you find are the things that should be the building blocks for your environment.
For fun I pulled out some images from a magazine that spoke to me. When I lay them out together I see some common threads: High contrast of black and white, signs of history and age, natural elements, atmospheric elements and it seems the only real color I like is dark blue!
As a designer I see this so often with clients, and also with clients of other designers, who ask for an aesthetic and end up with a beautifully appointed space, but with absolutely no soul of the client whatsoever. I guess this could be a house but it certainly is not a home that reflects who you are!
I would love to share with you some steps you can take to insure that your environment reflects who you really are and displays your personality!
1.) What happens in your perfect day?
A hugely important exercise you can take to make sure you are checking all your personal boxes is to write out your perfect day. In your perfect day Who do you talk with and hang out with, What are you doing, Where do you imagine yourself, When do you engage with the activities and things that light you up, Why are these things important to you? Make sure when you think about this you write down what truly speaks the deepest to you, do not put any limits on yourself. Here is my other post on one way you can explore this for yourself! How to Visualize Your Dream Life. This is a great activity to share with your friends and loved ones, you end up learning beautiful things from this!
2.) Make sure your space supports your life!
Your home is yours, nobody else is going to live there. You need to make sure that you are using the space in the manner which brings you the most happiness. For example lets say you inherited a space with a large formal dining room, but you, an artist, actually hate cooking and can’t ever imagine yourself formally serving a party of twelve. Why don’t you turn this space with a big window and stunning light into an in home studio instead? A space you will now actually use and love everyday? Just because something is set up in one particular way does not mean it has to stay that way! You are the creator of your own reality. Make sure you are using your space to best support what your perfect day looks like in your imagination.
3.) Be real.
Again this environment is yours, no one else’s. We should never be living to impress or seek approval from anyone but ourselves. Just because someone has the most expensive, rare, or “special” space does not make that environment a home. You should surround yourself with things that make you happy. Let’s say everyone and their Mom is painting their spaces white because that is the “in” thing to do, but your soul yearns for pitch black coziness…Please Do It. It’s your life.
4.) Personal Affects and History
You need to have objects in your home that make you feel something! If you find yourself copying a design aesthetic to a T from a periodical page with each piece of art and coaster placed just so, I am warning you, that place will never feel like your home. However, if you have photographs blown up from your travels, books that you love, artwork that you made yourself, or that a friend made for you, these are the things that a home is built around. Tell your story and share your collections! Never worry about the way something looks. If it makes you smile and its surrounded by all the things that you love you are on the right path. If you are surrounded by things you love but you still feel that you need help, this is the best time to enlist a design professional!
5.) Artwork.
Art is so important. It should be collected over time and speak to who you are. Make sure that the people who live in the home have picked out the art or created it themselves. This element is probably one of the most important in a home, and it really can be anything, but it must say something about the people who enjoy it. Don’t pick some art out just because you feel a room needs it. Do some research, see what is out there that speaks to you. It needs to be something you love to look at! Also don’t be afraid to switch things out that no longer work for you, and never ever keep a piece in your house if you feel guilty about giving it away - again your home is your home!
6.) Your Color (or lack of it).
Your favorite colors or no color is a fast way to inject your personality into your home. When you look at art or beautiful inspirational room images what colors stand out to you. What colors do you feel drawn to and which turn you off. When you follow your desires they lead you to the colors that should make an appearance in your environment. Are you drawn to warm hues or cool? A fun way to do this is collect some images of art that particularly speaks to you and see which colors show up again an again. Maybe you don’t love color in particular and thats great to! By intentionally asking yourself these questions you put yourself in alignment with what your environment should feel like!
For example this is a piece of art that I personally own. It depicts one of my favorite places on earth, on a foggy atmospheric day, in mostly cool colors: all of these elements speak to my personality and aesthetic and this piece makes me very happy.
Thank you so much for reading!
• If you would like to read some of my own random journal entries go to •Musings•
• If you are interested in more Interior design, deeper self, wellness, or psychology posts…
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I would love to connect with you deeper!
Love,
Hi I’m Catherine,
“I balance authentic interior design with intuitive insight to help my clients connect to their deeper selves by empowering their own creative self expression.
I create space for them to follow their desires and depth of feeling, into a new environment that supports them, mind, body, & soul”
Love,
Catherine Rose
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