How to Find Your Interior Design Style Without Having An Identity Crisis
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How do you find your personal interior design style… without suffering a crippling identity crisis along the way?
With social media these days, it's like we’re constantly getting hit with an aesthetic firehose to our faces, and we're left dripping with inspiration, overstimulation, buying temptation… all the -ations. 🙃
And sometimes this is a good thing and it actually inspires you and helps you style your space! But it can also be paralyzing and leave you wondering, “Who am I exactly?”
So in this post, I'm giving you 3 steps to discover into your authentic personal interior style without the identity crisis!
And sprinkled throughout this post are a bunch of photos depicting the different interior styles out there, so as you read you’ll get plenty of visual inspiration. ✨
Would you rather watch than read? Here’s the video! ↓
1. Psychoanalyze Your Style
To figure out your personal interior style, you need to really dive into what's going on in your brain. What would make you feel your best in your space? What do you need your styling to do for you in an emotional sense?
Styling is a very psychological process. It all starts with your brain. All your decor ideas, all your personal preferences, all your styling decisions… it's all in your head. So start there!
Block out all the noise from social media, YouTube videos, decor blogs… lol but finish this blog post first, then start blocking things out. 😉
There's value in getting inspired by others, don't get me wrong. That's actually the the next step in this process. But that should only come once you have fully explored what you need from your space.
Focus on yourself. Be self-centered in your styling!
Think about what your dream apartment would look like. Really try to get as detailed in your mental picture as you possibly can. What colors surround you? What what textures? What materials? What's the mood? Is it dimly lit and romantic? Is it bright and cheerful? Is it earthy and cozy?
Try to envision what kinds of styling choices would make you feel a sense of belonging in your apartment. Simply put, what will make you feel good? Take the time to fantasize about your dream apartment.
And you you may walk away from this step feeling a bit lost. You know, I've been feeling pretty lost about my personal style since I moved into my current apartment, so it happens! I'm not sure if true clarity exists anyway. Otherwise we'd be like enlightened beings that have achieved Nirvana or something. And really, I'd love that for us, but it's probably not going to happen, haha.
So if you're having a hard time visualizing your dream apartment in your head, then let's go to your real world. Maybe there's a cute coffee shop in your area and you love the way they've decorated it, or a nice hotel you've stayed at, or a spa, or a restaurant, or a book store. Any physical space that simply made you feel good.
This is all about drawing upon your imagination and/or your personal experiences. Basically, anything that takes place in your brain is what this step is all about. And let this self-exploration inform your decorating and buying decisions, not the other way around.
2. Getting Inspired
After you've done the deep dive into the psychology of your personal style, then you can start to let outside inspiration back in.
Getting inspired by others is valuable. There is no shame in it. And no one's styling is truly unique anyway; we're all drawing from the same resources and the same designs.
But it's not about being unique. It's about being authentic.
Trying to be unique is overwhelming and impossible. So think about being authentic instead. This is why the first step is important; if you do the self-reflection first, then as you get inspired by all the outside influences you’re taking in, you'll have a stronger backbone about what you authentically want.
So of course getting inspired often means browsing Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube videos, etc. and gathering ideas about what you like and what you dislike. This is obvious, I know, but unlike the first step, this step is not that complex.
In fact, getting inspired is more about your primal emotions. The first step was psychological and this step is primal. So as you're taking in visual inspiration, pay attention to the visceral reactions you're having to what you see. Really take the time to study the images that make your heart skip a beat, give you a frisson of excitement, and make your soul feel sparkly.
This is different than just seeing an image and like it because it's pretty. For example, when I see a picture of a beautiful minimalist space, I really like it. I think it's so pretty. But does it make my soul sparkle? Does it match my style psychology? Does it mesh with my identity? No.
This is where I think a lot of people get lead astray and end up with a space that doesn't feel like their space. Just because something is pretty doesn't mean it's right for you. Your personal style really does go deeper than that.
A lot of people think that anything having to do with style is materialistic and superficial, but it is so much more than that. At the end of the day, it's creative expression. And there is nothing more fundamentally human than that. And in this particular creative expression, we get to live in it! I mean, what other creative expression gets to say that?
And remember that visual inspiration is not just located on the internet. It is everywhere around you. I mean, think about the TV shows that you watch, the movies that you watch. What set decorations appeal to you? What do you find yourself noticing about the places you go in real life? What do you like about the restaurant you went to last night?
It's so easy for us to let the world pass us by without noticing the beauty and the things that actually inspire us. So just slow down, let that inspiration soak into you, and that will ultimately inform your styling choices in a way that's truly personal to you. Because you're the only person who has your specific experiences.
3. F*ck Around and Find Out
So step one was all about exploring exploring what's on the inside, step two was all about exploring the inspiration coming at you from the outside, and step three is about putting it all into action.
When decorating any space you really just have to f*ck around and find out. It really all comes down to experimenting with your styling, giving various things a try, and then adapting when they don't work.
Something I've learned from decorating my own apartment is that no matter how much inner work and preparation you do, styling choices always involve some level of risk; the risk of failure, the risk of something not looking as good as you thought it would, or even the risk of just feeling underwhelmed by a styling choice you made.
Either way, you just have no choice but to f*ck around and find out. Mess around with your styling and find out what works and what doesn't. It's really the only way you're going to end up with your dream apartment.
And there are ways to avoid buying things that end up not working out. For exmple, I have found it extremely helpful to create a mockup of the things I’m thinking about buying in Canva, and that's a really awesome way to help me envision how things might look together.
This is kind of a way to do the styling experimentation digitally before you physically buy new things. It helps mitigate the risk of wasting money and items. If something doesn't look good in your Canva mockup, then you just click delete. And that's all there is to it!
Doing this has allowed me to make some styling changes in my living room that ended up really working well, because I planned them ahead of time in Canva and got a sense of what they could look like. Stay tuned for an upcoming living room decor update because I have some new pretty things in here!
But really, mistakes will happen. That's just part of the process. You will choose the wrong things sometimes. My whole point with this step is you just have to experiment and play around with your styling.
Play around with the stuff you own first and then fill in the blanks with new purchases. This basically sums up my approach to styling my apartment for the last year; I decorated using things that I already owned first, then I bought new decor and furniture where it was needed, and I used Canva to create mockups.
And slowly but surely, this space has started to come together. I feel like I am starting to get back in touch with my personal style, and a big part of that was just f*cking around and finding out in here.
So that was my take on a possible three-step process that you can follow to try to tap into your personal interior design style!
Of course, there are many more facets to this and more tips that I've given before, if you want to check out any any of my other videos. But there's really no one way to figure out your personal interior style. This is just where my mind is at personally based on my experience decorating this apartment for the last year.
Let me know in the comments below, how would you describe your personal interior style as it stands now? And if you're really not sure, maybe treat the comment section as a way to brainstorm some ideas. Do that exercise from step one; close your eyes and try to fantasize your dream apartment into existence, then try to describe it in the comments if you feel so inclined!
