graham & Brown
Personal items, including jewelry and collected shells, mix with a sleek modern sideboard and Ornate wallpaper by Julien Macdonald for Graham & Brown, creating a one-of-a-kind look.
Although you may mean well, the design team must strongly urge you away from overly matched interiors. While the matched look is easy, it is not terribly interesting and reflects nothing of the homeowner.
The newest (and perhaps the oldest) look is an intensely personal style of decorating. After all, shouldn’t your interior design stylishly reflect the unique person who lives in the space?
The key to personalizing your space is to stylishly mix influences that speak to you and your family, and reflect your unique personality and style.
This type of design takes some self-knowledge. First of all, which décor look attracts you? Check out décor magazines to get a sense of this. Make sure your look reflects your personality and lifestyle.
For example, if you are introverted, and you use your home as a refuge, you may choose furniture and accessories to produce a feeling of calm and serenity. If you’re an extrovert who loves to entertain, bright colours and more dramatic furniture and accessories would likely be in order.
Look as well at your existing stock of furniture and accessories. Which of these are important to you? Which have sentimental value? Which provide you with amusement, or have special meaning? Get rid of items that have no special personal appeal or meaning.
Of course, it takes time and effort to pull together furniture and accessories that are meaningful to you, or reflect your personality and tastes. It will not happen overnight, so be patient. Think of your space as your canvas, a work-in-progress, and you are the artist who must put together your well-chosen décor items and make them work.
For example, you may decide to throw your beloved grandmother’s crocheted blanket over a modern-looking bed. You may decide to hang needlepoint work by a dear sister in your modern condo. You may decide to reupholster a traditional-looking sofa in a fabric with a contemporary feel.
With an intensely personal décor style, people are looking for items that do not look mass produced — they want items that look handmade, designed especially for them. Designers and ordinary folks interested in personalizing interiors are embracing warm, comfortable design elements, but with an added dash of personality.
This means you may go for old-fashioned accessories or pieces of furniture that belonged to someone in your family. But consider reinventing and updating them with modern materials and bold colour, and even a touch of humour. For example, you may include a painted cuckoo clock. Similarly, you might use old-fashioned looking dainty floral wallpaper, doilies and lacy curtains in a modern setting. These homey elements add a feeling of comfort and warmth.
Use colour and balance to pull all the elements together. For example, use colours in the same family. If you use a colour contrast, repeat the contrast colour in small ways throughout the room. Balance the old and new in the room so you can avoid isolating an older piece in a modern-looking setting, and vice versa.
In the end, you must count on your critical eye, and be willing to remove accessories or furniture if the look just doesn’t gel. Remember that the personalized look in décor is your evolving masterpiece.
