How to Discover the Best Design Aesthetic for Your Home
When it comes to your personal design aesthetic, do you feel you have an abundance of ideas but don’t know how to narrow them down? If so, you’re not alone.
It’s easy to get lost in your scroll and become influenced by every beautiful interior on your feed. Those beautiful, bold navy kitchen cabinets look stunning on Instagram, but does this style reflect you? Will it fit your specific home?
Inspiration is never a bad thing, but discovering your unique aesthetic is the real secret behind a beautiful, timeless home that will spark feelings of happiness for years to come. During our thoughtful design process, it’s our job to remove the overwhelm and confusion and guide you through an exciting discovery of your ideal design aesthetic.
The end result? A personal, collected, and functional home that effortlessly supports your family. Trust me, it’s as amazing as it sounds. Here’s how we do it…
Step 1: Brainstorm
This first step is all about immersing yourself in the expansive world of design. At this point, don’t worry about figuring out why you like a specific style. Instead, we’ll guide you towards selecting inspiration that resonates with you and evokes a feeling. These brainstorming techniques will set the framework for capturing the vision for your home.
Pinterest, Google, Instagram, magazines, and your favorite shops are great places to start. Collect a variety of images that you’re drawn to, and if you’re using a search engine, get specific with keywords. For example, try using phrases like “modern organic” or “classic transitional” to see what resonates with you most. (Or take a peek at our portfolio!)
Tip: Consider local home tours and visiting stores and showrooms to help you familiarize yourself with current styles and price points.
Step 2: Gather Inspiration
Now that you’ve had plenty of exposure to today’s design world, let’s get those ideas organized. It’s time to create a mood board that will house those beautiful inspirational images you saved — an album on your phone, a folder on your desktop, a dedicated Pinterest board, or a physical folder of magazine clippings if print is your thing.
If you have a lot of pictures (that’s okay!), consider arranging them by room. Gathering and organizing the images from your brainstorming session will naturally guide your vision by pointing out any recurring styles you gravitate towards.
Oh, and sharing your inspiration with your designer will provide a great deal of insight into your overall aesthetic, even if you can’t identify it yourself. That’s what we’re here for!
Step 3: Discover Common Themes
With a complete mood board, it’s time to take a closer look at your images and notice the details that thread them together. Do you see similar colors? Did you collect living rooms full of cozy textures? Do all of your bathroom images feature brass fixtures?
With an analytical eye, we will help you pinpoint these common themes and curate a comprehensive list of what you love. The exciting part of this step is that you may not have even realized you were drawn to a specific element until you notice it popping up in multiple images!
Bonus: With our help, we can guide you toward identifying what you love and what will fit with your home's architecture and your family’s lifestyle. That’s interior design.
Step 4: Refine Your Inspiration
Now, it’s time for us to spend time reflecting on your collection of images, your project goals, and your home. With the list of elements you love in hand, we’ll consolidate inspiration images into a conceptual design for your home or for individual rooms, with color palette, materials, and the overall vibe.
This will become the “design direction” for your project and the foundation for every item that we select or custom-design for your home. We will share our design concepts with you, refine it with your feedback, and ensure that it is perfect.
Step 5: Implementation
With a clear vision and a design direction set, things will begin to get real! We will start to source items, collect fabric and materials for you, design custom elements (like built-ins and banquettes) to bring the vision to life.
You will also have a chance to review everything, touch samples, and share your thoughts before we finalize any decisions. This is how we ensure that the selected style seamlessly flows together and fits your family’s lifestyle. Then, once you’ve given us the green light, we take the lead on managing the project and bringing your aesthetic and 100% unique home to life.
Discovering Your Style
Going through these steps can be fun and exciting, and you’ll learn a lot about yourself in the process. But remember to give yourself time. This exercise isn’t intended to be completed in a day or a weekend. However, over time, you’ll notice that you will develop a trained eye and become more decisive about what you genuinely like. After all, anything that’s worth doing is worth doing right.
Whether you’ve already nailed down your design style or you’d like some support getting started, I’d love to be your guide through your next steps. Reach out to me here, and together, we’ll create a beautifully timeless space that feels like you.
