Live what you love – this is something that I cannot stress enough. The fact that you must trust your instincts, and you must always, always, always decorate for yourself and your immediate family, and the things you love, and the way you live.
Believe me, I don’t expect everyone to ‘get’ my style, certainly not in its entirety, bits of it maybe. Miscellaneous in an eclectic frame of mind is how I describe it! But I love it, and that’s what counts.
Personally I think there is little appeal in a carbon copy space, no matter the budget spent to achieve it. Every room needs personality, and this can only be achieved by giving yourself and the things you love over to a space. Curate and display your treasures with love and thought. You have to put as much of yourself into your home as possible. Do this and your home will give back in spades. And you will have an authentic space that is truly your own, and always makes you smile.
When you surround yourself with things that you have chosen because you love them, whether they be upmarket or fleamarket, cookie-cutter or bespoke, chippy vintage or shiny new, inherited masterpiece or future Picasso in the making painting by your 5 year old, if you LOVE them, then they will work because there is a common denominator, and that is you! Decorate from your point of view, and no-one else’s. Oh, and please don’t get a second and a third and a fourth opinion on something – if you love it, trust your instincts and be confident in your style.
Great style isn’t about how slavishly you follow a trend or how quick you are to embrace the latest, greatest thing; in fact it’s anything but slavishly following a trend or quickly embracing the latest, greatest thing. Great style isn’t about opening the latest home décor magazine and setting out to copy a room in its entirety, even if it is a beautiful room. True style is about owning your own sense of style. It’s about having the courage of your convictions. It’s intermixing with aplomb. It’s about the details, the personal, the quirky, the loves, the curation, the inspiration.
It has nothing to do with the designer, nor with how much something costs. Money cannot buy style. Actually, experience has taught me that some of the best interior style is inspired or conceived on budgetary limitations. True style is inspired by true style, and then reinvented in a fresh new way.
We all know rooms that have it. That certain ‘je ne sais quoi’, can’t quite put your finger on it, x factor. Rooms that wrap you up in their beauty, and an eiderdown of comfort and warm emotion. These are not rooms hurriedly thrown together on the whim of a trend. They transcend the trend, and ultimately probably inspire a host of new trends. They have great style.
My real, authentic interior self is naturally imperfect, and completely ok with this. More than ok, I embrace it whole heartedly. Getting caught up in the so-called perfect home quest is just asking for trouble. The most perfect spaces are always perfectly imperfect. It’s those little quirks and speed bumps and chippy details that make a space real. That give it character and authenticity and warmth and appeal. Items and objects chosen because they have memories attached to them or are adored, saved for pieces, rather than because they ‘will go perfectly in the house’. If you truly love something then, believe me, it will go perfectly in the house, even if it is in the most perfectly imperfect fashion.
There is beauty in imperfection – too often we strive for the perfect, the impossible; what is more important is a home with soul, that tells the story of those who live there and the things that they love.
Article Contributed by Amanda Holland
Small Acorns – Cnr Blair & Wakefield St, Wellington For all of your interior needs: Website or check them out Facebook & Instagram
