Personal touches go a long way to demonstrating your personality in your interior design. It could be as simple as something you found in a thrift store or a family heirloom – the point being that not all of your accessories and décor has to be purchased new.
This holds true whether you are decorating the kitchen, the bathroom, or even the hallway; even rooms that you feel already have enough furniture in them, hanging a cool picture that you really like can give it a punctuation of personality that can completely change the tone of the room.
It could be a tiny thing that you repurpose, such as a small, interesting thing that you can use in your bathroom for a hook, even though it was not originally intended to be used that way. You’re using it differently, and that makes it more unique to your home and your personal style.
Contrasting Styles To Make Your Personality Shine Through
Just because your neighbors’ homes are decorated in farmhouse style doesn’t mean that you have to fall into that groove too. You can still have elements of that style if you like it, but you don’t have to go full force in one direction. Most people tend to want more than one style of décor, and it’s okay to step outside of it to make it your own.
Our Approach
If a client comes to us with definite ideas about the style they love, we don’t often try to talk them out of it. Our philosophy is that it’s your home, you should do what you love.
However, we do like to look at the rest of the house and get an idea of the other pieces they have and see if they can either be acclimated into the new space or if we can find things that are similar to work into the design. This gives us a more cohesive design result.
In the end, it doesn’t have to be picture-perfect to the design style you like. There is a way to work personal touches into the design, so it still matches and looks like it belongs there. This is what’s going to make it unique without compromising the new style you want.
A Sense Of Place
Bringing natural elements into your design is something you might want to do as well. For instance, if certain rocks or items are common to your area, that could be incorporated.
In St. Louis, for instance, there are a lot of factories. Bricks, milk bottles, industrial-type items are very much demonstrative of the sense of being here, and you see this popping up everywhere. It’s very much a part of our history and what makes our city unique.
Accepting Imperfection: Wabi-Sabi
There’s a traditional Japanese aesthetic known as wabi-sabi, which is described as a world view that centers on transience and imperfection. Perfectly imperfect. This is a great approach to design, especially in the context of our topic here today.
Wabi-sabi means many things; among them, impermanence, emptiness, self-nature, simplicity, asymmetry, austerity, economy – and the adjectives go on.
How this might work in the context of your interior design would be, for example, if your wall is rough or crooked, you might choose to feature it instead of hiding it. You could then select your décor to match or compliment the imperfect feature.
It’s kind of like what they say about music: play a wrong note once, it’s a wrong note. Play it twice, it’s jazz!
To use a more design-centric metaphor, it’s like taking a broken bowl and filling the cracks with gold. It’s a subtle way to inject personality and you are guaranteed it’s something you are not going to see anywhere else.
It’s All About You
Your home shouldn’t just be a reflection of its design. In truth, anyone can achieve any trendy design look they see on a show or in a magazine. There are entire collections of decorative items dedicated to one style or another.
What’s really going to make your interior design stand out – and, arguably, make you the happiest in the end – is including items that speak to your soul, that make you smile when you see them. We say it all the time, but it bears repeating: do what makes you happy. You’re the one that is going to be living with it, after all. Just be sure you’re not turning your back on your personality in the process. Injecting a bit of yourself into your design is always a great idea.
Are you getting ready to remodel your St. Louis home? We’d love to hear your ideas! Reach out today to start the conversation.
