Establishing your personal style

By Connie Britell, ASID

	Britell

What, you say? You’re not quite there? Not really certain? Still have a bit of a struggle defining your tastes and even suffer with the occasional nightmare when it comes to selecting a wall color? Well, relax and let’s take a peek at that infamous personal journey, and some of the prescribed steps to understanding and being able to express one’s own personal style. Remember, no animal comes out of the shoot with a road map. Self discovery on every level takes more than a month or two, and that includes being able to express who you are as you create your home’s interiors. Then, just when you think you have it down cold, something happens that skews the big picture and everything changes. Ergo, the journey.

The whole process of design can at times be quite mysterious; it is certainly hard to define. Style is all about the many differences and fascinating choices we have when it comes to creating our interiors. We each follow a unique path and therein lies the heart of the matter. For me, design, style, whatever you choose to call it, arises out of a feeling, an intuition for color, scale and pattern. But just how do you pinpoint your style? One way is to turn yourself into a sponge. Absorb everything you come into contact with even if it doesn’t seem relevant at the time. Whether it’s nature suggesting ideas for color, pattern, form, or places you’ve experienced through your travels, different landscapes, cultures or architecture, your mind acts like the great memory bank — a tapestry, a scrapbook of indexed ideas — upon which you can draw to define what you like and love and find inspirational.

However, you don’t have to travel on a grand scale to strange and exotic locations; the same kind of experience can be found much closer to home. Walk through areas of your city or town where the architecture speaks to you. Visit historic places that combine elements of period architecture with contemporary accents to add freshness and wit to your designs. Actively seek out inspiration from exhibitions at museums and galleries, showrooms, furniture catalogues, and by reading books on art, culture and history. Even movies can spark creative excitement. I vividly recall the first time I went with my two interior designer sisters, at their urging (who had seen it before) to see the film Something’s Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. I feared that we would get kicked out of the theatre due to our endless and I’m sure disturbing nudges and whispering to each other about the amazing sets: the absolutely envious placement of Erica Barry’s desk in front of the wide bank of windows overlooking East Hampton beach, the living room with it’s three tall, side-by-side French doors and transoms mirrored by three outside patio tables each with its own white umbrella, or that charcoal-stained kitchen floor contrasted by the gleaming, white farm cabinets. Before leaving the theatre, I vowed to buy the video as soon as it came on the market in order to stop action and study the many details of both exterior and interior architectural and design elements.

I often suggest to my clients at the start of a design project that they make a file with pictures of their favorite places, color schemes, magazine cuttings of interiors and even gardens. So often the secret to why an architectural feature works is hidden in the proportion of one part to another. Photographing or sketching the elements accurately may at times be the only way of reproducing them later.

In addition to photos, I ask clients to buy postcards of places, buildings, furniture, beaches, sunsets ... anything that inspires them, even snips of fabrics, ribbon or braid. Do you remember the colors that make you feel happy? Do you recall the bright red window trim that accented that thatched-roof, whitewashed cottage in Ireland? The electric blue-green of the shutters in Provence? How about including photos of the long stretches of sandy beach with its tufts of marsh grass and the colorful beach houses lined up along the shore? Ask yourself how any of these choices, influences and elements can be introduced to re-create that contented feeling in your own home? The whole idea is to arrive at a style of your own; an expression of your particular tastes and experiences. This practice of observation builds a trust in one’s own instinctive feelings and preferences. The more you explore and make conscious note of the things that inspire you, the more confident you will become with your own style preferences.

Once you have tapped into your store of inspiration, you’re ready to choose materials, colors and furniture that fit your developing style. Like most of us, you may need a bit of encouragement to get past contemplating the options. You have found things you love and now it’s time to build around the images and feelings that you have collected. Interior designers will be the first to tell you that they’d rather not start from scratch. Their best projects are a combination of what you love and what they know. Last summer’s beach scene can, for example, be translated into your home environment when selecting sofas and chairs of a relaxed design, upholstered in sandy neutral materials with walls awash in creamy textures; see natural sisal rugs, the sun streaming through voiles or sheers at the windows or streaks of light peaking through wide-louvered plantation shutters.

Remember to analyze the function of each space. List the possibilities — even those you may have overlooked until now. Then, set the mood. Learn how to select and create an inspiration piece of furniture from which the design will flow. Maybe it is vintage, maybe new. These exercises provide your “road map” to a wonderful room or home.

Now your preferences and hopes can be conveyed in both word and pictures, and you will never again feel overwhelmed by a decorator challenge. You will easily be able to put your personal stamp, your style on the room, giving it warmth and vitality. This is your fingerprint — your personality and that of your family. And it’s the way to keep your living spaces from looking like a model home or a hotel room.

So, in garnering what appeals, you’ve found yourself capturing your style. You have edited, added, refreshed. You have discovered that today’s approach to design is that personal spaces are not works of art, done to perfection and forever frozen in time. Basic furnishings might remain for years, their coverings and arrangements changing to accommodate needs and wants. Elements can and will be changed as time passes. But each space needs to be flexible.

My next article, scheduled to appear at the end of March, will address the ever-popular subject of COLOR! I invite you to submit your color or any design-related questions to me at DovetailDeziner@aol.com.

TIP OF THE DAY: A room is never “done.” One’s own style is never set in stone. Your style is an ongoing process, as are each of us, forever on our journey.

Connie Britell, ASID, is owner of Dovetail Interior Architecture and Design with an office in Washington, DC and Ocean View, Del. She is also co-author of SOS, Sisters On Style, The Professional Organizer For Your Home Designs, available in March 2005.