Defining your Decorating Style

If you were asked to succinctly define your decorating style, could you do it? What about the prevailing color scheme in your home? How would you describe the way you want your interiors to "feel"? Would you say that you have successfully achieved that style, that color scheme, and that overall feeling in your home?

Almost everyone has a general sense of direction when it comes to decorating their home, however they may feel at a loss when it comes to the details of making their vision play out.  By far the most common need that I hear expressed by clients is the need for assistance in "getting it all the hang together".

Taking all the pieces of the decorating puzzle and getting them to fit together in a way that looks good, feels good, functions well, fits the budget, AND can translate well from one room to another in your home is, to say the least, a tricky undertaking.

Begin by making sure you have a good handle on your preferred decorating style.  Whether your style is traditional, transitional, or contemporary, it needs to be consistent throughout your home.  By no means does this imply that every room in your house should be a carbon copy of each other, but by keeping a consistent style from room to room, you will be keeping them compatible as a whole.  Then, vary the degree of formality among your rooms to provide variety and suit their functions. 


Secondly, rely on one of the most useful tools in your bag of decorating tricks, your color scheme.  If you are starting from scratch, play around with paint chips until you find a combination of five or six colors that are really pleasing to you, and use this as the basis for your entire home's color scheme.  Then, choose one of those colors to be the predominant one in each room, another to be your secondary color, and the remainder as accent colors. 

In your mind's eye, switch out which color will play which role in each of your rooms.  As long as you stay within your basic color scheme, you can create very different looks in each area of your home, but still have them complement each other and maintain a feeling of flow from one space to another.

Today's wide open interior spaces can be especially challenging when it comes to creating an interesting but still unified look.  A common example of this challenge is in great rooms, which often encompass kitchen, dining, entertainment and relaxation spaces all in one.


By utilizing at least one key element, such as a certain motif, texture or fabric that is common to each of those spaces but played out in several different ways, you can achieve a look that is unified but not boring.  For instance, don't dress all of your windows in exactly the same window treatment.  Instead, use the same fabric or fabrics, but change the design from one space, or one window configuration, to another.  Or if you choose metal and glass for your occasional tables in the sitting area of your great room, repeat the metal in your choice of barstools for the breakfast bar.  Similarly, try carrying the fabric from your sofa into your kitchen area, by using it as embellishment on a valance over the sink, or as cushions on your kitchen chairs.

The key to making your decorating scheme feel like it hangs together and flows from room to room is to make sure that at least one element or "piece of the puzzle" is carried over from each of your rooms into the next.  That element could be color, pattern, texture, or all three.  When done carefully and with imagination, you will create a wonderful flowing feel throughout your home.