Buying a home is an incredibly exciting milestone in your life, whether it is your first home or not. However, decorating that home can be a little daunting, especially if you haven’t found your personal style yet. Obviously, your home is your space, and therefore it should be a reflection of you and your personality, perfectly customized to you, your tastes, and your needs. Finding your footing when it comes to interior design can be a process, so we’d better get started.
Learn the Basics
You will also need to make an effort to learn more about the basics of interior design. Of course, there is a lot to learn, and you cannot possibly learn it all in such a short time, but getting to grips with the basics can help you to understand the words and phrases that continually appear. There is a lot of jargon and keywords used within the interior design realm, and you will need to know what they mean.
Knowing these words can also help when looking for inspiration because you will know what terms to search for to find the things that you want. They can be as specific or generic as you want to start with until you learn more and start to narrow down your choices and begin to know your likes and dislikes.
Finding Inspiration
The first step in finding your interior design style is to look for inspiration. Luckily, design inspiration is everywhere. Home makeovers and design shows are incredibly popular on TV, and these can help. However, in addition to those, any tv show could really serve to provide you with inspiration if you like their approach.
Social media, online publications, and sites like Pinterest can also come in handy, as can physical publications like design magazines or books. Wherever you find your inspiration, it is important that you do your best to take photos, screengrabs, or cut-outs so that you can compile them and keep them.
Analyse Your Choices
After you have gathered enough pieces of inspiration, you should use them to create a mood board, either digitally or physically. Once it is all laid out ahead of you, try to look for the similarities, this can communicate a lot about the styles that you are drawn to. If you've got a style you're consistently drawn to, it could be beneficial to use 3d interior visualization tools to see your home laid out in a more realistic style. You could view your home furnished in a way that matches your mood board, this way you might have a better idea of whether the theme works or not. Being able to swap out things until you find a layout that works for you means that you can move forward with the process fully informed of what the end product will look like.
Think about why you have been drawn to each of them. Have you repeated a lot of colors, patterns, pieces of furniture, or even hardware and finishes? If you can, it might also be beneficial to scale back and get rid of some things. You might also find that your choices are ambitious, and you need to enlist the help of a local builder, carpenter, joiner or other relevant tradesperson to help you if you want to achieve these things in your own home, which you can do using a site like MyBuilder.
Think About Your Dress Sense
It might seem odd, but the way that you dress can help you when it comes to working out what your interior design style is. It does make sense when you think about it. Both of them are simply an extension of your personality and personal tastes. Take a look at your clothes, what do you see a lot of?
Think about your favorite colors, textures, and patterns. Do your clothes fit within one specific style? Do you tend to opt for more bohemian looks, or are you more grungey or preppy? If you can pinpoint this, then it can help you when looking for design inspo because often, the words and terms can be applied across the board.
Pinpointing Colour Palettes
A large part of interior design is the colour palette, and in some instances, colors are associated with specific styles and so thinking about the colors that you want to use can help. One of the biggest decisions that you will need to make is whether you are more drawn to warm or cool colors. These can help you significantly narrow down which style might be best for your home.
You could also think about your favorite color, whether you want to use it, and how you could incorporate it if you do. You can then begin to find complementary – or even contrasting if you want to make a statement – colors using the color wheel, swatches, or charts. Don’t be afraid to play around.
Final Words
Do your best not to overthink it; there are a lot of times in life when going with your gut is the best choice, and this is one of them. If you like something or you are drawn to a style, then go with it. Trust your creative instincts and intuition. There are, of course, other factors to consider, like your capabilities and even your budget, but that being said, any home design style should be able to work with your budget if you take the right approach. Finding your style can take some time, and that is totally okay. You should also not be afraid to experiment; they won’t all work, but they will all get you closer to finding and executing your vision.
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