Understanding Your Home Style

Pull up your Pinterest account. Do you have a house board? Maybe you’ve split it into bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens. You have no idea why but those pictures spoke to you. But when you go to the hardware store and go down the isles you have no idea what to pick let alone how things will look when everything is installed.

I hear you. I’m personally working on a whole house remodel and my house renovations page is huge. So how do you know your style? Sure, you can go to any major remodeling site and take a “style survey.” But being pigeon-holed into ‘country chic’ gets old and what the heck does that mean anyway?

Here are some tips to get your bearings in those endless isles of tile and paint chips.

1. Set up room categories. If you have not done it already sort your rooms photos so you can concentrate on one area at a time.
2. Start with the floors. Look at each room category and see what you post most often. Is it dark hardwood, grey carpet, marble tile?
   TIP: Figure out your style first and worry about the budget second. There are many alternatives  with the same look, so don’t sweat it.
3. Next, look at the walls. Bright colors? Cool neutrals? What do you have the most pictures of? This is one of the cheapest parts of a remodel- so don’t worry about picking the wrong one. Just know you can paint again.
   TIP: Not sure where to start? Find a photo or painting you want to display in your home and use the “Chip It” App from Sherwin Williams to pull out a color pallet for yourself.
4. Room accents. Look at the trim in your photos is it big and prominent? Or barley there? Would adding crown molding turn that basement room into an oasis instead of a dungeon? Would a different fireplace mantle make your living room go from farmhouse to modern?
5. Here come the fixtures. This means the color of your lighting, the look of your doorhandles, and the cabinet finish. What is most common in your pictures? Picking the same finish throughout the house will bring a continuity to your home and style.
6. Finally, furnishings. This is the part most people start with but should not. Style is not what you put in a room but what makes up the room. Putting different things in your room can change the look but the bones of a room is what makes the style.

Now you should have found your preference in flooring, your color pallet, your accents, fixture finishes and furnishings. When you set them together does it flow? Does it make you warm inside and want to live in that room? Call it whatever you want. But it’s your style and it doesn’t matter as long as you love your home.

Were you able to figure out your style? Did you give it a funky name? I’ve listed my self created style below, check it out.