Interior Design : Find Your Personal Style

Five steps to finding your own personal style in home decoration so that you can apply it to everything from the welcome mat in your hall to the curtains in your kitchen.

There are as many styles in interior design as there are homes and it can be overwhelming to try and work out your own personal style. Here are a few ways that you can establish your likes and dislikes as far as interiors are concerned so that you can stamp your own personality on your home.

1. Look at Books and Magazines

Take a look at as many interior design books and magazines as you can. You should be able to find many at your local library or bookstore. This is a case of browsing rather than buying to check out the kinds of established styles that you like. Do you like the retro 60s look, Art Deco or minimalist contemporary? Is Scandinavian, Mediterranean or Oriental decoration more to your taste? You can find out by browsing through a lot of images one after the other.

2. Browse Around Online

Add to your offline research by looking at interior design websites online. This has the added advantage of allowing you to print out examples of the kind of styles you like so that you can collect your ideas together. Although you could buy the books and magazines that contain your favorite images it could get very expensive quickly.

3. Don't Get Trapped

Although you are likely to see whole themes in books there is no need to be trapped into decorating a room in one particular theme if you don't want to. You are just looking for elements you like in a style - maybe it's a warm rustic look from a Mediterranean theme with lots of natural colors or maybe it's the uncluttered spacious feel from a contemporary loft apartment. It is these aspects of the design that you want to create not necessarily the whole look to get something that is personal to you.

4. Make a Style Board

Make a style board of the elements that matter to you, the types of furniture finishes, the colors, textures and patterns. Mix and match the different images until you get something that you think will work well together.Remember to think of the room you are styling too if there will be a conflict. It is difficult to make a spacious loft style in a country cottage!

5. Add Your Personality Later

If all this seems too much work to create a personal style just see it as selecting things you like which work well together and which work well with your room. If all else fails decorate in neutrals and add your personality with accessories - an area rug you adore, a vase you love and a wall painting which means so much to you will go a long way towards giving a room your own personal touch.

Article Tags: Interior Design, Personal Style, Work Well