In this post: When you’re a beginner do-it-yourself decorator, it can be hard to know where to start decorating. It can also be difficult to find your unique decorating style. I’ll show you how to do both in this post!
When I was just starting to play around with decorating our home many years ago, it took a lot of trial and error and time to get it to a place that I loved and would call beautiful.
Finally decorate your own home – with confidence!
You’re so much closer to a beautifully-decorated home than you think. You just need a little help to get there!
Back then, there were no blogs or online courses to teach homemakers how to decorate their own spaces. The best we had were magazines filled with perfectly styled images of professionally designed homes.
No one told me where to begin, or how to find my own unique style, so I fumbled around trying to figure it out for myself. Eventually – after a few years of practice and some time and money spent – I got the hang of it and then sorted out the best order for non-designers to decorate in.
And I discovered that it doesn’t matter where you live, how many homes you’ve lived in, or how many times you’ve attempted to decorate before, where to start decorating is exactly the same.
Table of Contents
Where to start decorating
You need to start with your unique decorating style.
Defining your decorating style is the FIRST STEP in creating a beautiful home because every decorating choice you make is based on the decorating style that makes your heart go pitter-patter:
- Paint colors
- Patterns
- Furniture
- Rugs
- Curtains
- Art
- Lighting
When you know your decorating style, these choices become MUCH easier to make.
4 Reasons Why Knowing Your Unique Style Makes Decorating Easier
There are 4 reasons that knowing your style makes decorating your own home easier.
1. Knowing your style gives you “bumpers” (guidelines)
This one is by far the biggest reason you need to know your style.
Do you remember those bumpers that they used to put in the gutters for little kids at the bowling alley? They were designed to help guide the bowling ball down the alley to the pins. Even if the ball was thrown a little wildly, those bumpers provided success for the beginners by keeping the ball on the right track.
Well, knowing your unique decorating style gives the same sort of guidance to your decorating endeavors. Especially when you’re a beginner. Knowing your style keeps you from veering wildly off-course as you pull your home decor together because you have a framework to guide you.
Guidelines are good, my friend!
2. Know your style means you can describe it
Imagine if someone tells you you don’t need to know your own style, that you don’t need to know how to describe it. Or they tell you that you do know what it is…”inside” (vague much?).
Okay, now picture walking into your favorite decor shop and trying to ask for a lamp. Or doing a search online and simply typing in “table lamp”. How overwhelming do you think those results would be? I’ll tell you…966,000,000 results overwhelming (I just Googled it!).
But what if you know your style and can describe it too? Just by adding the words “French country” before “table lamp” in the same search above, the results are reduced by over 900 million!
3. Knowing your style saves you time and money
When you know your style, you will no longer be buffeted to and fro by whatever you see, unable to make a choice. You won’t waste any more time and money. With a firm grasp on what you know you love and what you don’t, you will be able to make decisions based on that. And you will be able to say “no” to things that don’t fit with what you’ve decided your style is!
Let’s take my style for example. I like 35% French country, 35% Transitional and 29% Farmhouse. For all you beautiful math lovers, the other 1% is made up of a myriad of styles.
Now, truthfully I like lots of things and can appreciate a lot of decor styles. But those are my top three favorites, which make up the basis of my unique style.
If I were out shopping for a clock and saw a beautiful ivory-colored Mora clock for a price that was in my budget, I’d buy it in a second. It’s French in origin, with classy lines (which hits the Transitional button) and it’s neutral (hello, Farmhouse). Perfect!
But if I were out shopping and saw a big industrial clock with gears and metal and a grungy look (still in my budget), I would not buy it. Would I love it? Yes. Would I find it unique and interesting? Yes. Would it tick all my boxes – and therefore fit in with my decor? No.
By following the guidelines I’ve set for myself with my unique decorating style, I no longer waste my time or money on something that won’t work in my space!
4. Knowing your style gives you confidence
Finally, when you know your decorating style and you don’t waste any more time or money, you can feel confident in your choices. A lack of confidence in decorating can all but be eliminated when you know what you’re doing. And being able to identify and describe your unique decorating style is the first step in knowing how to decorate your home!
How to Find Your Unique Decorating Style
1. Think about how you want your home to feel
Do you want a home that is refined or rustic? Classic or Whimsical? How do you want to feel in your home? Jot these things down.
2. Gather inspiration
Look at the magazines and HGTV shows you like. Look at your Pinterest boards. What do all those things have in common? What shapes, colors, textures are similar in the inspiration images you like? Pay attention to the details and make a few notes.
3. Narrow it down
Now collect those observations and create a new Pinterest board that has ONLY the images that speak to the feelings you want to convey through your home and the details you love. This will give you an idea of your unique decorating style.
Take My Decorating Style Quiz to Find Your Unique Decorating Style
If the above steps didn’t make it clear what style you like, I highly encourage you to take my “What’s Your Style?” quiz to learn which home decor style is the best match for you!
Take the quiz!
