I normally post a DIY project every month, but Lindsay was gracious enough to let me try something different this month. You see, I enjoy a good DIY project, but what really fires me up is helping the style-confused find confidence in their inner decorator.

Maybe decorating decisions have you in knots.  You don’t where to start.  Or you like so many different things you can’t figure out how to pull them all together.

I help you find style clarity. It’s the key to confidence in decorating your home and “getting it right”.

I know how important style clarity is, because I didn’t have it in my first two homes. I felt lost. I never felt proud of my decorating. I was frustrated, because even when I redid things I never seemed to get it quite right.

I thought I was just no good at decorating. I made lots of excuses…I couldn’t afford to do it right, I have to please my husband too, and whatever, I am a busy working mom, I can’t be expected to do everything.

Then, at the tail-end of our time in our second home, the clouds parted and the sun started shining. I started figuring out what I really loved and how to multiply those elements, so I loved even more of my home.

Then, we sold our house.

Finally.  It had been on and off the market for almost 3 years (darn housing market crash).

I should have been excited…Yay! New home here we come.

But all I could think was, oh crap, a new home means starting the decorating process all over again.

I didn’t think I could survive years of making mistakes again. I worried that’s how it had to be. To get it right, you had to go through trial and error in each new home. I mean, that is what happened in my first two homes.

My anxiety about starting all over is what prompted me to define my style for the first time. I wanted to capture everything that had worked in our first two homes, repel everything that didn’t work, and be able to recreate my style anywhere I moved.

When I started piecing together my style definition, I noticed some very strong parallels to other things I liked that seemingly had nothing to do with decorating.

I had struggled with figuring out my decorating style for years. But when the lightbulb finally went off, I realized there were clues to my style right there under my nose the entire time.  I just didn’t know what to look for.

Really, I was looking in all the wrong places. I was looking in design books, decorating magazines, and furniture stores.   I was looking at how others decorated for clues to my style.  As I write that, I realize how absurd that is.

The problem is looking at what others did in their homes added to my confusion. I couldn’t figure out what I actually liked for me.  But there were so many other areas in my life and environment where picking a favorite came easy.

It is in those easy picks that the real clues to your style lie.

Your decorating style is part of your personal style. Your personal style is made up of your personality, your interests, your fashion style, your lifestyle, and your decorating style.

Personal style is what you like and don’t like at your very core.

When one area of your personal style is vague, hazy, or just plain missing, it helps to look to the other parts where you feel more confident. What is working in those areas of personal style that you can apply to decorating?

There are 7 places you can look for clues to your decorating style, most of which seem to have nothing to do with decorating.  The key is understanding more about your personal style.  Most people are more comfortable picking likes and dislikes in these 7 categories, than they are in making decorating decisions.  These clues highlight what you really love, so you can bring similar loves into your decorating.

Let’s start big picture and work our way in….

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