Style sense can be intrinsic and it can certainly be learned. If you want to live with beautiful interiors then use your senses to create personalized decor.
Some decor styles are incredibly unappealing. Often it’s the visual elements that don’t seem to ‘work’ or a room gives off a ‘vibe’ that’s not cohesive.
If your decor makes you feel uneasy, and you can’t identify why then try these tips to tap into your intrinsic senses.
Style Sense: Sight
Is your decor too busy? Are there too many colours, patterns, or furniture? Sensory overload will make you feel tired and disoriented. Whilst in the Victorian era people stuffed their rooms with furniture, textures, and accessories, modern thinking dictates that clutter has a negative effect on our psyche.
If this is your issue, declutter and create a room that can ‘breathe’. Leave only those things in the room that make you truly happy and par down furniture. Take a cue from the Scandinavians and create minimalist Hygge decor. Rather than looking cold, it can be stylishly warm and inviting. Choose up to three colours, add warmth with wood or textures, and hide clutter in stylish storage.
However, if you have the opposite issue – too little furniture and bland accessories – then consider the colours, themes, and feelings that make you feel good. Perhaps you need to add warmth to the walls, a colourful rug on the floor, textural throws and cushions on the sofa, or a visually appealing display on a flat surface.
Warmth can be added with wood, textures, and colours. If you add a strong colour on the walls, keep other decor calm and neutral. Pick up the strong wall colour, such as the red below, with cushions and throws that co-ordinate. See the article on how to add unique style to create a home you’ll love.
Style Sense: Smell
Our sense of smell is the most primal of all our senses. So when your home doesn’t smell right it’s quite unsettling. Each new piece of furniture or ornamentation that you bring into your home will have its own initial scent. Flatpack furniture can emit a smell that lingers so even clothes stored inside can carry the scent when you wear them.
Buying a plug-in air freshener or creating a vignette with scented candles are easy ways to inject beautiful aromas into your home. Set up displays according to the room theme.
For example, in the bathroom use scented candles or a reed diffuser, hand towels, soaps, creams, perfume bottles, and dried flowers to create a lovely display.
In a living room, use a tray as the base area and add scented candles, books, a lamp, a vase of flowers, and unique ornaments to create a stylish vignettte.
In the bedroom, use a reed diffuser instead of scented candles. Add pretty pieces including jewellery, cut glass containers, stylish books, hand cream, perfume bottles, charming ornaments, and flowers.
Style Sense: Touch
Do you think your decor is built around style or comfort? For example, have you ever bought a sofa or chair that LOOKS amazing but is actually uncomfortable to sit on? Uncomfortable but stylish is fine if your living room is just for show. But if you’re planning a movie marathon anytime soon then you’ll be looking for another sofa.
Investing in a few bean bags to store away until they’re needed can be a great solution, but buying something that actually fits your needs is an even better one. ALWAYS buy the best sofa you can afford. Look for solid structure and webbing, high-quality fabric, and well sewn and finished edges and cushions.
When choosing any textiles – drapes, cushions, throws, rugs – close your eyes and touch the fabric. How does it make you feel? Is it pleasing? Is it luxurious? Can you live with it?
The temperature of your home must be optimum for your comfort. Throughout the seasons, ducted air conditioning will provide warmer air in the winter and cooler air in the summer for each room. These creature comforts are important for the enjoyment of your home, so ensure your heating and cooling is the most effective for your lifestyle.
Style Sense: Taste
Your taste in food and drink can be clues to your decor choices. If you love to cook, then copper pans hanging from the ceilings, rows of wonderful spices, and good storage for cooking utensils and serving dishes will be important. You’ll probably have a well-designed pantry and your kitchen may boast textures including wood, pottery, wicker, slate, cotton, and wool.
However, if you love to entertain but don’t like cooking, you may have a fabulously stocked bar or designer drinks trolley. You’ll probably love a good table setting so crockery, cutlery, nappery, and table accessories are important to you.
Be guided by what you love to eat and drink and how you entertain to decide your decor style.
Style Sense: Sound
Shoes squeaking along a laminate floor, the clacking of heels on granite, the creak of a heavy door – these are all sounds which some people absolutely cannot stand. It’s a condition called misophonia, and if certain noises make you feel uncomfortable or irrationally angry, it’s likely that you have it.
Getting rid of the sounds could be as easy as telling people to take their shoes off at the door or applying some WD40 to the creaky hinge. Don’t make yourself hate your style and what you have chosen for your home based on the noises it makes.
Do something about it before you start to become resentful for your choices – something that none of us should have to do if we know that deep down we love it!
Recommended Retailers
Use the suppliers we use, including Zanui, for on trend and replica furniture; Temple & Webster, for beautiful homewares on sale; Brosa Furniture, for handcrafted elegant furniture direct from the manufacturer; Icon by Design, for handcrafted Scandinavian inspired furniture direct from the manufacturer; and Pottery Barn, for all your furniture nd homewares needs.
