They said we’d have flying cars in the future. What they never would’ve guessed is just how much personality would be removed from our world with the onset of the internet and “smart devices.” In recent years, modern and minimalist homes with sleek, futuristic designs and sterile, all-white interiors have become the norm in many places. With a muted color palette and minimal decoration, this style feels cold and lifeless. Our homes should be alive and personal, with charm and character in every nook and cranny. With no personal mementos, pieces with history or even a slight pop of color, a house becomes a shell instead of a home. Yet, making a place feel like home with décor and design is as easy as filling a room with laughter – it’s all about infusing a place with memories.
Decorating a home in a way that makes you happy is all about choosing things that exude who you are as a person. Your home is the space where you spend a good amount of time – it should be full of what brings you joy.
Take for example Dakota Johnson’s home in Architectural Digest’s “Open Door” series. Personal touches like the wax mushroom and her nickname back at Chanel as pieces in her office make the space feel lived in but also curated. Additionally, the combination of thrifted and new pieces make the space feel tastefully modern without being too artificial. Vanessa Hudgens’s house similarly exudes comfort and warmth through the way she’s chosen to design and decorate it, using a mix of cozy neutrals, vintage pieces and eclectic art to make the space uniquely hers. The way she talks about each piece in her home and the story behind how she found it shows how much thought and personality she’s managed to suffuse into every facet of her home – which is why the end result is so stunning.
While there are certainly some guidelines to follow, there are no hard or fast rules to designing your home – only you can decide what brings you comfort and how you want your home to look. Let’s talk about some tried and true tips that’ll truly help make a house feel like a home.
Styles
The easiest way to make a space feel cohesive is to choose an interior design style or two for each room and a color palette for the entire home, ensuring your home feels cohesive and curated (for the most part) while also personalized and livable. A few of my favorite styles that exude warmth and lived-in coziness are listed below.
- Traditional: characterized by classic design with a great deal of European influence, this interior design style emphasizes timeless elegance. It often entails lots of rich natural textures (think rich wood tones and fabrics like silk, linen and velvet), luxurious décor and a warm, charming color palette.
- Contemporary: this interior design style focuses on natural light, open spaces and a more toned-back style that feels refined, but still lived-in. Organic elements can really help ground contemporary-style homes, as can the incorporation of elements like glass and metal in design.
- Eclectic: in eclectic style homes, anything goes, with a mix of various different colors, textures, accents and furniture pieces coming together to create a space that feels cohesive and curated through its innate juxtaposition.
- Mid-Century Modern: inspired by homes of the 1950s and 1960s, mid-century modern design entails lots of warm wood tones and organic shapes, with the occasional pop of color. These homes feel timeless, and are often seamlessly connected to nature – the Eames House in California is a renowned example.
- Transitional: homes designed in the transitional style balance old with new, creating striking drama and character in their blending of traditional and modern elements. These homes simultaneously have the warmth and comfort associated with the traditional style, while also embodying a timeless simplicity in their modernness – pristine examples of this style can be seen here.
To see some more aesthetics that might inspire you or examples of the ones above, take a look at this article from House Beautiful. Go with whatever style resonates and feels like home to you.
- The Nancy Meyers Aesthetic: it should come as no surprise that many seek to make their spaces look like the ones from comfort movies they grew up with. The effortlessly elegant homes seen in Nancy Meyers’ films like Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated simply resonate warmth. Often cozy and inviting, the houses used as backdrops in Meyers’ movies truly feel like timeless, welcoming homes rather than film sets. The key to capturing this style is layering lots of different pieces, but in a way that doesn’t feel overly designed. Think laidback and understated, but also sophisticated and warm. Check out some of her most famous interiors here.
Tips
There are truly so many ways to curate a space and make it your own, but here are a few of my favorite tips I’ve gathered on designing a space that feels effortlessly you.
- Create a gallery wall full of your favorite things. That could be art, but it also could be memories! Check out your local thrift stores to find some vintage frames and fill them with your favorite art prints, photo strips, ticket stubs or any other physical memories you have. By utilizing personal touches, you can give your home character while also instilling it with some of your favorite things.
- Make use of what you already have! You don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of new things to decorate your home.
- Turn trash into treasure – napkins, matchboxes and photo strips can make for beautiful design elements with that personal touch.
- Forbes calls it chaotic curation, Vogue calls it “Shambolism”– whatever you decide to call it, your space should reflect what you love. If you love something, display it! The curated chaos and messy overlap of displaying things you love, even if they don’t necessarily go, allows you to be surrounded by objects that make you happy and hold stories rather than plain white walls.
- Gather things over time. This allows your home to continuously grow and change as you do, making it feel constantly updated yet timeless. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will your home!
- Search for secondhand or antique pieces for lived in, homey feel. New pieces are great too, but there’s something about a piece with a story that makes a house feel like a home.
- Add textures and shapes for visual contrast in a room that feels bland, or like it’s missing something. The extent to which you include different elements in your home entirely depends on what style and feel you prefer.
- Combine refined and laid-back furniture pieces with pieces of statement decor and pops of color to bring everything to life. This also allows you to keep a simple framework and change out the statement elements as your tastes change without having to do an overhaul of everything if you change your mind about a piece.
- Play around with juxtaposition (old vs. new, neutral vs. bright, soft vs. rough) and contrast to create visual intrigue.
- Have fun with your lighting. Warm-toned bulbs and an emphasis on natural light rather than artificial can make a world of difference in making a space feel cozy.
- Put an emphasis on human centered design rather than technology centered. Homes should be a reprieve from work and stress: a place where you can disconnect, wind down and recover. My favorite example of human centered design is the conversation pit, a 1960s living room staple that has recently come back into style.
- Tips from Pierce and Ward
- For the best tips and inspiration, look no further than interior design duo Louisa Pierce and Emily Ward, who’ve worked with clients like Leonardo DiCaprio, Dakota Johnson (hence why her home is so stunning), Kate Hudson, Lily Aldridge, Brie Larson and Emma Roberts to curate bespoke homes that are well-curated as they are personalized.
- Capture personality in the home.
- Earth tones can help to ground a space.
- Find inspiration in seeing how other people live and have lived (look to historical homes and the homes of interesting people you admire).
- Look for pieces that have richness and stories to them.
- A room is never done – you can always add to it as time goes on.
- Embody “the art of more” – homes should be about reflecting the stories of your life, memories, what you love and what makes you happy.
- Follow your heart, not trends (that way, you’ll never hate it!)
- Don’t overdesign – collect pieces you love and make them work in any space.
- For the best tips and inspiration, look no further than interior design duo Louisa Pierce and Emily Ward, who’ve worked with clients like Leonardo DiCaprio, Dakota Johnson (hence why her home is so stunning), Kate Hudson, Lily Aldridge, Brie Larson and Emma Roberts to curate bespoke homes that are well-curated as they are personalized.
Where to Look
While you can find pieces for your home anywhere, these places are a great place to start.
- Thrift stores, boutiques and antique shops
- Museum design stores (The Met, The MoMA, The Louvre)
- Second hand (eBay, Facebook Marketplace)
- Independent artists (Society6, Etsy)
- Online furniture sellers (Wayfair, Overstock)
- Designer splurges (Ralph Lauren, 1st Dibs, Jonathan Adler) or higher end home design stores (Restoration Hardware, West Elm, Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, Joss and Main)
- Assorted home design websites (try this list from Architectural Digest, or check out their décor under $300 list here) and curated online boutiques (Le Chateau and Casa Gusto are great examples, but I look here for inspiration more than anything since they’re not the most affordable options.)
- Everywhere! If you look for them, you can find amazing pieces just about anywhere you look.
Who to Look To
If you need help finding inspiration, Pinterest is always a great place to start. Start pinning different photos you find that you like and figure out how to apply those design elements to your own space. Architectural Digest is another great resource – both their website and their home tours on YouTube. You can truly find so much inspiration in the homes they feature.
Ultimately, decorate and design your house as much or as little as you please. It’s your home, so tailor it to you! Just remember, spaces are meant to be lived in, not just observed – so make your house feel like a home.