Today’s post is inspired by my mom. Love yas Mom! My mom has a cute little house in Florida. It has the same problem our house did when we moved in. Beige. Her house goes one step further. Builder beige. Everywhere. So she basically has a clean slate.

Now what?

This can be really daunting. It’s hard to find your style when you’re starting from scratch. There are so many possibilities. Super modern, midcentury, a little kitschy, coastal because it’s Florida? It can be overwhelming for even the best designers. We have been working together to figure out her style but nothing seemed to be hitting the mark. I asked her to try this trick.

Write down all the words that you want your style to represent. Now narrow it down to five. Or six or four. However many is needed to feel comfortable. Don’t pick too many. We want to focus in on what is really important. This will give us clues to what styles you like.

We do this in a lot in different ways during my day job as an Architect. We ask clients, “What are your project goals?” Once they have honed these into a few sentences we use these as guidelines for the project. All decisions must reinforce the goals of the project. We can do the same thing with home style. Here are some examples that my mom and I came up with as we were working on her style words.

Comfortable
Modern
Blue
Serene
Safety
Love
Bright
Clean lines (ok this is two words but I only count it as one)
Vintage
Antique
Cleanable
Security
Laugh
Homemade
Beachy
Disney
Texture

I actually have never done this exercise for our home. I thought it would be a great opportunity to take my own advice for a change. Here are some words that Ben and I thought about for our house.

Midcentury
Modern
Bright
Open
Dog friendly
Clean
Scandinavian
Functional
Vintage
Eames
Calm
Organized
Architecty
Comfortable
Friendly

After some debate we decided on:

Bright  Open  Dog Friendly  Comfortable  Modern

These words tell me we lean towards Modern, Mid Century, and Scandinavian styles. My mom ended up with a clean lines take on beachy with some vintage mixed in. Both reflect our own personal styles. We can use these words to make design decisions. Does this couch go with the overall style? Is this the right paint color to make the room feel bright? Is this chair comfortable?

I think I should put these in my phone. That way when I really want to buy something that is super cool but won’t go with my house I can pull out the words and see if what I have picked out works.

The great part about these words is you can change them whenever you want. As we get older, have kids, move, retire… these words can reflect our style stage in life.

What are your 5 words?

Comment below if you feel like sharing!

Catch up on my recent posts if you missed some!
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