Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Finding my Own Style



While wandering the blogosphere I came across a Personal Style Bootcamp by Fieldstone Hill (whose house I admired a while ago on Houzz).

The first step is to use words to describe what you'd like your home to be like, in terms of purpose, feel and look, with the aim of narrowing down to about five adjectives.  Here are mine:

simple
comfortable
serene
welcoming
open

(The author also suggests a "Don't buy word" to prevent yourself from buying things you really shouldn't!)

As we have a number of things to buy for our house, including some expensive items, I thought I'd better think about decorating for a bit. While I enjoy reading A Beach Cottage (that first picture), it's not my style, exactly. I love the same textures, but I need more colour in my life.  Besides, I'm a little further from the beach!


And I have a similar problem with Belgian Pearls: beautiful textures, but while those subtle tertiary tones are lovely under the soft Belgian light, our bright sunshine would turn it all to grey. We need stronger colours: acrylics, not washes, under our harsh light.

Dining Room

What I love:
linen
woven
wooden
cast iron
hammered metals
hand-forged
turned
simple
traditional materials and craftsmanship
wabi-sabi
handmade
a bit of industrial
Australian timbers
glass
green glass
grubby
stone
concrete
wool
faded
historical context
practical

The Lettered Cottage traditional dining room
What I don't like:
plastic
shiny
formal
neat
sleek
hygienically clean
antibacterial
tizzy
frilly
busy
two-pack poly

Living Room eclectic

Colours I like:

blues, especially blue-greens
yellow, except yellow-browns
purple, but not mauve
greens, except olive-greens
ecru, but not beige
red-browns
charcoal, but not black
soft whites and creams, but not pastels
peach and apricot, but not banana and orange

3 comments:

Diligent Gardener said...

Great pics, I just wish my own home had some of the organisation in the photos!

kelley @ magnetoboldtoo said...

I love every single one of those pics.

Sounds like we have similar taste.

bean bags brisbane said...

What a lovely ideas. How I wish my home looks like it. I would love to come home everyday with excitement.