What's Your Design Preference?

"Hello", and "Good Day" to you all!

As an interior decorator I often get asked the question, "What style do you like?". The first few times I really had to think about it.

You see in school they teach you all the types of different styles that have existed throughout the years. Usually this will be covered in your design history classes, the professor takes you from the beginning of civilization all the way to present day, and covers the different types of design specific to certain regions of the world. Then you take your actual design courses, and depending on your professors, they will select projects and give you specific types of design to use or let you select your preference of style. It wasn't until the end of my education that I didn't really start to notice the pattern or design type and style I tended to gravitate towards.

Now, just to sidetrack for a moment to clarify, a lot of people have the misconception that to say you like "antiques" you are automatically referring to pieces with a cabriole legs (the ball and claw type of furniture), in dark woods, and gold trim accents. Specifically people are percieving the pieces you would have seen in 17th century design. The term "antique" really is a reference to anything that is 100+ years old. It's not specific to any one type of design style. There are many design styles that are not as decorative that can be considered antiques. As of today, anything older than 1915 is technically an antique...

So back to my specific preference of "style". At the beginning I was a huge fan of traditional design. I grew up in a very traditionally decorated household. My mother loves 16th and 17th century design, and would use that periods style of decor everywhere. I joke with her to this day and tell her that her home looks like the Palace of Versailles. She is of the mentality "more is more". That type of style is very "romantic" it has a whimsicality to it that drew me in. So to say that I like and appreciate that periods design would be accurate.

However, that is not how I "categorize" myself. I have realized that I am quite the "social butterfly" when it comes to the conversation of design. I just flutter through and talk to all of them. I would consider myself to be "eclectic". I am not partial to one type of design or another. I like to mix and match and make things work functionally and aesthetically. Right now, on the desk that I am typing up this blog installlment, the desk itself is a very traditional Louis XV piece, and I have a desk lamp that is styled after the industrial revolution on one end, and a neoclassical style world globe on the other, with a computer in the middle. How's that for eclectic?

I am a firm believer in the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some people dislike specific types of design. That's not to say that those design styles are not beautiful. If everyone liked the same type of design style, first off I wouldn't have a field to work in, and the world wouldn't be what it is today. Everything would look the same and feel the same. How boring would that be!?!

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