This is personal
And it's not just about the way things look
The phrase “personal style” gets thrown around a lot on social media, but I think there’s something that gets lost in the discussion. To me, personal style is not just aesthetics. It’s so much more than a function of what you like to look at.
It’s directly linked to your personality.
What makes you feel comfortable, what frustrates you, how you like to spend your free time, what keeps you up at night, how you spend your money. This unique blend of interests, values and priorities is all a part of your personal style.
So when readers or clients come to me saying they’re having a hard time expressing their style in their home, my solution isn’t just prescribing the way I think your home should look. The solution needs to fit your personality and your lifestyle, too.
That’s why I came up with my three different ways to approach furnishing your home.
Disclaimer: if your home is already a reflection of your personal style and you feel good about shopping for new things, no need to read further! You got this!
I wrote this in response to a reader Maria Isabel who requested my help when she got two different quiz results on my style quiz, “i’ve gotten vintage salon and pottery studio! i like colorful and funky art or furniture but have a tendency to just have too much going on.” Liking multiple styles is totally normal, but feeling like your home has too much going on - that’s the part that stood out to me.
On calls you show me your homes and many of you tell me they don’t feel cohesive, they don’t match the vision you have in your head, and your style feels all over the place. This is for you.
Quick Home School recap from last week: If your personal style has multiple personalities (aka you like several different styles, most of us do) here are 3 routes you can take:
Elementary - Express one style per room
Intermediate - Pick one style as the foundation, with a few decor touches in another style
Advanced - A blend of multiple different styles
So are you Elementary, Intermediate or Advanced? As you’ll see it’s less about the way things look, and more about what brings you comfort, ease and joy in the process.
Elementary
In my experience, the easiest, fastest and most straightforward way to furnish a room is to pick one style that you’re aiming for and stick with it.
This approach is for you if you’ve ever complained that your home doesn’t feel “cohesive.” That lack of consistency makes you feel frustrated with your space. You yearn for more clarity when you’re shopping.
You know what you like and seasonal trends don’t really interest you (if anything they can be confusing).
You want your room to feel “done.” You don’t want this process to feel never-ending. The idea of trial and error sounds like a chore to you (because let’s face it, errors take time, energy and money to course correct). Online shopping gives you analysis paralysis and overwhelm. You don’t want a million options. You just want one good one.
It’s very important to you that the chair you buy today will “go together” with the coffee table you buy next year and the rug you buy in two years.
If you can relate, then I’d recommend sticking to one style per room. Note: I didn’t say per house, it’s just per room! This still allows you the freedom and flexibility to express other facets of your personal style in other rooms.
But what if you simply can’t be bound by one style? What then?
Intermediate
This method looks like having all of your major furnishings in one style, with a few decor touches from your other style. For example art, lighting, a mirror, a side table.
This could work for you if you’re more of an impulse shopper, when something lights you up you’ve gotta have it. Whether or not it “matches.”
You don’t like to be put in a box. You enjoy experimenting if the right trend comes along. Shopping’s not as fun when it feels formulaic. Sure, you might make a few mistakes along the way, but it’s more important for your home to feel personal than to feel cohesive.
Your challenge is that you want your home to feel like you, but sometimes “you” isn’t so easy to identify. You like a lot of different things. You’ve tried the “if you love it, buy it and it’ll all go together” shopping method and… it did not go together.
Sound familiar? Then try the Intermediate approach, create a solid base for yourself in one style and leave room for play in the decor and accessories. For example a Vintage Salon base with postmodern Pop Arcade lighting (sounds fun!), or a Pottery Studio base with Vintage Salon accents.
To keep things interesting for you, you can move these smaller decor pieces from room to room over time, experimenting with different styling combinations. This is good practice and will train your eye until you can master…
Advanced
The Advanced approach is expressing several different styles in one room.
In my experience, this takes a natural eye for design or a practiced one. Though that’s not the most important factor. I think this path is best taken by someone who enjoys the process.
You spend your weekends and your vacations hunting for unique finds to bring home. Shopping for you is research, and you don’t care how many rabbit holes you fall down if it leads you to a piece you love.
You rearrange all your furniture just to see how it feels. Then you might move it all back.
You have a well-trained Facebook marketplace algorithm. You might buy a new dining table one week, only to sell it and buy another one the next. And this is your idea of a good time.
It feels like play to restyle your bookshelves in a new style or color palette.
Your home will never be “done” and that’s the way you like it.
For the full rundown on these methods read here, and to see a room styled in these 3 different ways read here.
No matter how you decide to do it, I’m not saying any of these approaches are good or bad or better or worse. What I am saying is that knowing yourself in this way can help inform how you furnish your home in a way that fits your personality.
(Can you see how someone who “just wants to be done already” would feel endless frustration taking the Advanced approach?)
If you’re looking for more guidance on how to shop for your specific style, I shared tips on what to look for - colors, materials, shapes, etc - for each of the styles on my quiz: Pottery Studio, Vintage Salon, Curated Loft, Museum Bookstore, Pop Arcade. This is what I personally am referring to when I say “style” because these are the styles that I like to work in.
And if you’re worried that picking just one style will lead to a boring room, don’t be! I purposely included a range of design influences and time periods in each of my styles, so that none of them feel one note (which is what I didn’t like about most of the style quizzes I’ve taken in the past).
I hope this helps!
– Cristina
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And if you’re not ready to work with me just yet, I have a free video series for you and in this episode I talk all about how I fixed the curtains in my rental (pictured at the top).
What clients are saying:
“Cristina provided me tangible advice, and also helped me understand the design principle or the “why” of what she was suggesting. I learned a lot and have a direction now that feels very do-able!”
— Kymberlie
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