Finding your home's style

Hiring an interior designer is a great way to help let your personal taste shine throughout your home. But what if you don’t know what that style is? Interior designer Jamie Alexander walks us through the process of how to define your taste, and how an interior designer can turn that vision into a reality.

Your style is influenced by you!

When our team begins working with a new client, we strive to get an accurate understanding of their personal style and the design aesthetic, which appeals most to them. It’s not unusual to like specific elements of several different styles, with the look and feel of any home understandably changing over time based on the homeowner’s lifestyle, current interests, travels and experiences.

That said, most people have started down a style path in their own home to a certain extent. While some homeowners endeavour to try to figure this out independently, others opt to work in collaboration with a design firm like ours to define their design style and bring it to life within their own walls.

Pick up some magazines, or swipe on your phone

Regardless, a solid (and fun!) first step is always flipping though your favourite design and home décor magazines with a pad of sticky notes at-hand to mark what appeals most to you and why. It could be the specific colour, structure or detail, for example. After a couple of issues, you’ll start to see a trend emerging – this is your style shining through! Smart phones have also made it easy to quickly snap photographs of the favourite things you find when you’re out and about. Kept as a reference and coupled with your collection of sticky notes, your research will certainly begin to tell your personal style story.

How do you define what’s you?

In terms of defining your style sense, there are many directions you can go in. While some design professionals strictly believe in “right” and “wrong”, we believe in the importance of loving where you live and the design details that surround you. Consider your favourite hotel, for example, where the design direction is generally very clear. If you’re more comfortable at Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York than at Le Germain (or vice versa), you’ve got fairly clear indication as to your personal style. Either style is achievable in your home, providing you love it. Granted, a very traditional structure such as a stately old Victorian isn’t particularly well suited to a modern sense of style in its original form. It can absolutely be accomplished, however, with remarkable results through structural changes.

Which hotel speaks to you?

People are often attracted to a transitional style; neither classic nor modern, but somewhere in between. Its appeal is vast as it’s a relatively safe and low-stress style to work with. As opposed to prompting a strong reaction (love or hate), most find it pleasant and comfortable to be around. Nervousness and fear can sometimes prevent people from taking chances on a look they love. Designers can share their insight and expertise to help move clients confidently from their current comfort zone towards their ‘true love’ design style.

When was the last time you visited an art gallery? Did you find yourself drawn to simple blocks of colour or to the more detailed landscapes? What colour palette made up the image you were attracted to? Did your sense of style gravitate towards the abstract, contemporary or completely classical? The good news is there’s no exacting science behind what resonates with someone and, ultimately, it should come without judgement. Remove the element of what you’re “supposed” to like and simply react with your emotional self.

We, at the design firm, strive to make sure it all functions well for our clients’ lives and results in a sense of satisfaction and happiness each time they walk through their front door. Discovering your style, whether with a professional or on your own, can be a rewarding and beautiful process. Either way, we promise you, everyone’s got style!

Ready to hire an interior decorator to transform your home? Use our directory to find a professional. Finding someone who will understand your vision could be tricky. That’s why we recommend you use our directory to look through reviews, image galleries and videos. It’ll help you make an informed decision when hiring an interior designer!