How to Discover Your Home Decor Style & Create Your Dream Home

One of the number one things I get questions and compliments on is how I’ve decorated my house. First of all: thank you! I’m not an interior designer, but I think working as a digital designer helps me put things together and know what looks good aesthetically. You guys seem to really love my house-related content and I often get asked for decorating advice, so I wanted to put some tips together to hopefully help you out. The following are the exact steps I take when brainstorming, designing and executing the decor in each room of my house and it’s worked wonders for me!

Discovering your home decor style can be a process. If you feel like you’re not drawn to anything particular and you just don’t think you know what looks good together, this post is for you to help you realize you’re more capable than you may think. Your dream home is one that feels just as good as it looks in your own eyes, and in order to execute that, below are the steps I recommend with tips to keep in mind along the way.

Utilize Pinterest to the fullest
I know Pinterest is a duh and the cliche platform to use to plan for literally anything in your life, but it’s popular for a reason — it really is helpful and can be used strategically! It’s a key element in how all of my rooms came to be. It’s an excellent way to explore what it is that you actually like and to gather all of those ideas in once place. If you don’t know where to start, begin by searching keywords you think fit you and what you’re aiming for most. Once you find a genre that suits you, explore similar pins and save all the ones that feel like you.

Create a color palette
This is an element of designing your home that can often be overlooked or not fully defined. It’s easy for someone to say they want a beige and blush living room, but in my opinion, it takes more colors and shades than that to put together a room that looks and feels effortlessly complete. Don’t confine yourself to just two colors because everything could end up looking way too matchy-matchy. Pinterest is full of perfectly curated color palettes for you to implement in your home. I suggest searching the platform with a color or two in mind that’d you like to incorporate and maybe base it off of some of the interior images you find yourself pinning/most drawn to. I find it to be easiest to select a few colors you want to highlight the most, then select additional colors to compliment them as needed.

Curate an inspiration board for each room
Now that you’re dived into the Pinterest world, be intentional with what you’re pinning. This has done wonders for my interior design strategy and creating rooms that I absolutely love. Though I personally never directly buy items through Pinterest, my boards/pins give me a direction to go in when I am shopping and pulling my own items. Gather images that have a simialar vibe and you’ll see your true home decor style begin to unfold. It’s so crazy to look back at mine to see how similar my rooms ended up looking in comparison to my inspiration boards!

Don’t furnish just to furnish
This is a big one. Decorating your home isn’t a race — it’s more of a journey, as much as I’m sure we’d like to snap our fingers and be done with it. If you quickly buy things just to have things, you’ll likely be way less happy with your home in the long run. Be selective, wait for the good deals and invest in pieces you’ll love for years! If you have to eat dinner on your couch for a few weeks before you find the perfect table and chairs, then so be it, you know? I have to remind myself of this sometimes, but the wait is always worth it.

Find stores that fit your style and check back often
Not all stores are going to necessarily carry items that you’re drawn to. My style is very specific and I know certain stores aren’t going to fit my vibe, so I don’t spend time checking those. Some of my favorites are:

• HomeGoods
• TJ Maxx
• Salvage & Co (local to Indy)
• Target — they have WAY more stuff online than they do in store, so check their website too!
• Wayfair — they range in price, so wait for a good sale
• Serena & Lily
• Etsy — great for custom, unique or one-of-a-kind pieces

Instagram is a great place to find niche home decor stores if you’re wanting to shop small. As for checking back for markdowns, sales or an item you weren’t 100% set on the first time you saw it: do! Give yourself a chance to think about the item before buying it and sometimes you can get a way better deal if you wait it out too.

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Those are my best tips for pinpointing your home decor style and decorating your space! I hope this is helpful for you and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I love chatting about this kind of stuff and you can read all of my other home-related posts here. Thanks for reading and check back for another new post later this week!