Discover Your Interior Design Style with These 6 Tips
Once you’ve made the decision to delve into the world of interior design, the first challenge you might encounter is determining what your interior design style is. Discovering what style you gravitate towards is important as this ensures that your décor reflects your unique personality and taste. After all, your home should be your personal palace.
However, discovering your personal design style can be a daunting task, especially if you’re not well versed in the art of interior decoration. But don’t be discouraged! We have some useful tips to help you identify your personal style and translate that into a home that’s perfect for you!
6 Tips for Discovering Your Interior Design Style
Use Your Imagination
What picture comes to mind when you envision your ideal home? Settle in your mind what you want your home to look like and create your own mental image before searching for inspiration elsewhere. If you find it too difficult to imagine, decide how you want that space to feel. What kind of atmosphere do you want to create? Warm? Elegant? Relaxing? Cozy? Involve all your senses in the process. How do you want your curtains to sound when you part them to look out the window? How comfy should your couches feel when you sit on them? Don’t worry about putting a label on your ideas yet; but focus on getting a feel for what you want.
Contemporary or Traditional?
There are tons of interior design styles out there, and it may be overwhelming trying to decide which best suits your taste. One helpful way to cut through the hoard is to separate all styles into two broad categories: contemporary and traditional. From there, other categories can be fairly split between the two. Traditional interior design, as its name suggests, is steeped in historic styles trends. Its designs are usually ornate, elegant, classic, well-ordered and symmetrical. Traditional furniture is typically thicker and more elaborate. Traditional sub-styles include colonial, Victorian, neoclassical, modern farmhouse, boho, cottage, coastal and so on.
Contemporary design, on the other hand, is characterized by more modern and simplistic elements. Where traditional design involves ornate and lavish elements, contemporary designs try to be sleek, minimalistic and understated. Mid-century modern and minimalism are styles that would fall under the contemporary category.
Do you like simple, modern spaces? It means you might be leaning towards a contemporary style. If you find that you have a preference for ornamental furniture and lavish decorations, it might prove that you have a taste for traditional designs. If you find yourself gravitating towards one style over the other, pay attention to its sub-categories and dive in from there. However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to adhere strictly to one style and should be willing to incorporate elements from others if need be.
Find Your Colours
What colours are most appealing to you? Create a colour palette with the colours you love most and apply them to your preferred design style. Use the 60-30-10 rule for ease, with 60% of your space taken up by a primary colour, 30% with a secondary colour and the remaining 10% for a tertiary colour. If you find it hard to select colours that complement each other, try using a colour wheel. Colours that sit opposite or next to each other on the wheel are complementary colours. In all, make sure your colour palette reflects your individuality in a way that enhances your décor.
Hunt for Inspiration
Once you’ve found your primary design style, it’s time to start hunting for inspiration. It’s okay to draw on inspiration from existing designs after getting an idea of what you want. This will help solidify those ideas floating around in your mind and provide a more tangible perception of the overall layout you’re going for. Feel free to check out online photos, as well as interior design magazines and catalogues. A good source of inspiration is Aycee Market’s online store, which has tons of eye-catching product images and prices, which will come in handy when it’s time to make purchasing decisions.
Consider Your Space
Beyond the aesthetics of a room, utility and comfort are important factors to consider. What looks good online or in a showroom may not meet your needs in the real world. Thus, it’s imperative to consider the purpose of each space and what will work best in achieving those purposes. When decorating an office, deeply traditional furniture may not play out well and you might have to find clever ways of incorporating traditional elements into the space. So make sure to strike a balance in a manner that harmonizes your style with your interior.
Be Flexible!
While going through the actual process of selecting furniture and shopping, you might find that you’re interested in pieces from multiple style genres. You might like that modern lamp but find yourself enamoured by a traditional table set. In such moments, you might want to forget about categories and be flexible with your choices. In the end, what matters is that you create a design that’s both personable and comfortable. Interior design styles certainly won’t matter when you’re trying to settle into your couch after a long day of work. So don’t compromise comfort and utility for a style fixation.
Now that you have these few tips in hand, we hope you feel more confident in expressing and embracing your unique personal style in creating a home that suits you. And don’t forget to enjoy the process!