How to Decorate Your Apartment & Make Your Personality Shine
Living Pretty Ep36 // How to Decorate Your Apartment & Let Your Personality Shine
Want some ideas on how to decorate your apartment and let your personality shine through? The key to unique interior design is to find pieces of decor that reflect what you love in life! And in this video, I’m sharing some interior styling tips that will help you figure out how to find your decor style and incorporate your interests and passions into your aesthetic apartment decor.
If you’re looking for apartment styling ideas, how to create stylish nerd home decor that reflects the things you geek out about, how to find your interior design style, and simply how to make your room look cool, look no further!
Video Transcript ↓
I’ve made some slight edits in the transcript below so that everything makes more sense in text form. But overall, this is almost a word-for-word dictation of what I say in the video. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
So you decorated your apartment. And it’s pretty! But there’s something missing.
It’s pretty… but it also kind of feels like it isn’t yours… like, are you in a stranger’s pretty apartment right now? Are you even supposed to be here?
Well, what you might have overlooked when you were busy making things pretty is the most important thing of all when it comes to your decor, which is you! Your passions, your interests, your personality. The things you geek out about, the things that light you up.
But how do you incorporate all that and still keep things stylish?
Well, in this video, I’m gonna give you some actionable tips that will help you inject your personality into your decor, while still keeping a certain aesthetic quality.
And if you’re new to my channel, my name Steffi and I’m the creator of the style blog Moda Misfit, and you’re watching Living Pretty, the place for apartment styling tips and small space decor inspiration. So if you’re into that kind of stuff, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode goes up every week!
Every little decor decision I made in my apartment exposes a little piece of me, tells another chapter of my story. Even when I remain quiet, my apartment has plenty to say. And I want you to feel that same sense of belonging in your space!
For me, when you walk into my apartment you pretty much know me as a person, if you pay attention. You know my taste in music and you know my favorite video game (Legend of Zelda), you know that I love the anime Death Note because I have the manga everywhere, and you can gather that I have an affinity for the sort of darker, moodier things in life.
My goal when it comes to interior styling, whether it's my space or someone else's space, is I want the styling to speak volumes about you without you having to say a word.
Styling is a potent form of communication, and I don't think a lot of people fully realize that. So when you think about your styling, instead of thinking about how you want your space to look, try thinking about what you want it to say about you.
1. Write Your Love List
So in order to start reflecting your personality in your interior styling, the first thing I want you to do is just simply write down a bunch of the things that you love. What are your interests, your hobbies? What are your favorite movies, your favorite TV shows? What are your favorite video games? What are the things that really get you going in life?
Just sit down and write them all down in a list. You can even treat this like a journaling exercise, if you're into that kind of thing. I personally am. I'm a sucker for a good introspective journaling session.
You can keep it as simple or as detailed as you want. The point is to really sit down and tap into the things that you love in life.
2. Start Shopping Your Love List
Once you have a solid list going of your interests and your passions, then it simply sit down and start online shopping for things that have to do with those passions and interests. Wall art, coffee table books, throw pillows, any sort of decorative items that have to do with that thing.
Let's say you love Shakespeare. You could simply just type in “Shakespeare wall art” into Etsy and see what comes up. There are a whole bunch of options that come up for Shakespeare wall art - I happen to know this because I'm a Shakespeare nerd.
When it comes to finding personality pieces, I personally recommend Etsy (that’s an affiliate link, along with the linked photo below) and Redbubble!
3. Prioritize Your Personality
Another tip I have for you for incorporating your personality in your decor is to simply prioritize it. When you're shopping for things online, focus your attention on these personality pieces and then build the rest of your apartment around them.
Now, this can be tricky because there's so many pretty things out there and it's very easy to get shiny object syndrome. So I'm not telling you to completely ignore all the pretty things that you see. But really just pay special attention to those personality pieces. Really try to focus a good chunk of your shopping time on seeking those out.
What can happen when you don't really prioritize the things that are important to you as a person is your interior styling process can really start to take on a life of its own. And then, before you know it, you have an apartment that doesn't really feel like you. You'd be surprised at how quickly things can sort of snowball when you’re decorating, so you have to be very mindful and purposeful when it comes to incorporating your personality. So don't let it pass you by!
Now let's talk about how to incorporate your personality into your interior styling without veering into the tackier side of things.
There is a tasteful way to incorporate your personality without getting sort of kitschy and cheesy, and to avoid the whole, like, tchotchke vibe.
Now, take everything I say with a grain of salt. At the end of the day, if something makes you happy in your decor, that's all that matters. If other people think it looks like a tacky tchotchke but it makes you happy, fuck ‘em! I am not a believer in hard-and-fast rules when it comes to interior styling.
But if you're concerned about style and you want your personality pieces to be elevated as well as expressive of you, then here are my thoughts.
4. Interpretive vs. Literal
The first thing you can consider when you're shopping for your personality pieces is think about whether something is literal or interpretive. Now, what I mean by that is, for example, my death note manga is literal. It is literally the Death Note manga and that expresses my interest in Death Note.
Meanwhile, my Triforce mirrors are interpretive because they are not literally a Legend of Zelda thing. I just bought these mirrors from Target and shaped them to be the Triforce. So unless you're a Legend of Zelda fan, you might not even know that that’s a Legend of Zelda thing. You might just think, “oh she made a cool little triangle shape”.
Another example: my angry Fiona Apple canvas in my entryway is literal because it's literally a picture of Fiona Apple. Meanwhile, my sound wave art above my bed is interpretive because it is an interpretation of these three songs that I love. You see what I mean? One is obvious and the other is less obvious and requires more interpretation.
The reason why I'm talking about literal versus interpretive is - while both are fine and I use both - a space can start to feel pretty kitschy if you're using too many literal personality pieces. It's good to have a balance between the literal and the interpretive.
5. Presentation
Another way to incorporate your personality pieces tastefully is to think about about your presentation. How are you actually presenting the item?
Let's say you're a fan of The Doors and you get a poster of Jim Morrison. The more tasteful, stylish way of displaying that Jim Morrison poster would be to get it framed and hang it up. The less tasteful and more dorm room way of doing things would be to thumbtack the Jim Morrison poster to the wall.
We're talking about the same Jim Morrison poster, so it's not even about whether the item itself is stylish or tacky, but the way you present it.
So with each personality piece, just think about, “Am I displaying this in a way that does this piece justice? Am I really honoring this interest of mine by displaying it in a way that it deserves? Or am I kind of half-assing it and just thumbtacking something to a wall?”
6. Avoid Clutter
Another way to inject your personality into your space without getting into the tacky side of things is to just simply avoid clutter.
Now, I fully realize that I just told you to avoid clutter, yet here I am with a shit-ton of stuff in my own apartment. I am a bit of a maximalist, what can I say?
But there is a fine line between styling and cluttering, and it's a line that I admittedly really walk like a tightrope. But there is a point where things do get out of hand. And so, if you're feeling unsatisfied with your decor and you're feeling that sort of stressed out feeling, it could be because you have too much stuff going on.
While I believe that incorporating personality is the number one thing that you should do when styling, there is a point where it becomes too much and you might start feeling overwhelmed. And nobody wants to feel that way in their space.
Striking that sort of this balance can make things feel a little bit more manageable, and also more refined. You know, it's very interesting when someone can have a dynamic sort of way of displaying the things that they love. There's a certain level of artistry to that.
And I know that might make you feel some pressure, and I don't mean to make you feel pressure. You don't have to be an amazing artist about this. But I think it's fun to aspire to, you know?
You can find ways to make sure your personality is present without cluttering your space to the point where you don't even feel comfortable anymore. Just take things one decor piece at a time, all the while prioritizing your personality pieces. And then just let things come together. You can take this slowly and just be mindful of your personality while you style, and you're bound to create a space that feels like you and also feels stylish.
So that was just a little crash course on how you can incorporate your personality in your interior styling!
Of course, every space is different, every person is different. One person might want a ton of their personality present in their space, one person might feel perfectly content with just one item that speaks to who they are.
However you end up incorporating your personality into your decor, the main thing I want you to keep in mind at the end of the day is that interior styling is a form of communication.
It's not just about making things pretty, and it's not just about impressing other people. It's about communicating things yourself.
Tell me in the comments below, how do you incorporate your personality into your decor? And if you're struggling with that, tell me about that too. What do you think the struggle is? What is the challenge you're having with incorporating your personality? Tell me!
If you want daily glimpses into my studio apartment life, then follow me on Instagram @moda.misft. And if you want regular doses of apartment styling tips and small space decor inspiration, then subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode goes up every week!