Why Decorating Matters: The Power of Personalized Design
Why does style, design, and decor matter? Here's the thing, my friend, style isn't just about superficiality. It actually brings several benefits that can enhance our well-being and confidence. In this epsiode, I break it down into four categories: emotional well-being, relationships, personal development, and confidence. By paying attention to our homes and cultivating a signature style, we can create spaces that truly reflect and support who we are. And let me tell you, it's not just about following trends or seeking validation from others. It's about embracing our unique taste and designing our homes in a way that brings us joy and fulfillment. So, if you're a homeowner or someone looking to create a personalized living space, this episode is for you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Discover the importance of style, design, and decor in creating a personalized living space that reflects your unique personality and tastes.
Cultivate a signature style to positively impact your emotional well-being and create a harmonious environment that promotes happiness and relaxation.
Explore how your style choices can enhance relationships with others, fostering a sense of warmth and connection in your home.
Use decorating as a form of self-expression and personal development, allowing your space to tell your story and showcase your individuality.
Unlock the power of cultivating a signature style to boost your confidence in other areas of life, empowering you to embrace your true self and take on new challenges with assurance.
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPSIODE
Free 5 part audio series to get started with the Slow Style Framework.
Episode on why I've rebranded everything from Little Yellow Couch and The Style Matters Podcast over to Slow Style Home. A behind the scenes look at how I developed my Slow Style philosophy.
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ZANDRA ZURAW
KEY MOMENTS - TIMESTAMPED
00:00:20 - Why Style Matters,
Zandra reflects on the importance of discussing why style matters in decorating, design, beauty, and style. Style is not just about making things pretty, but it has benefits such as thoughtful design, avoiding trend-based choices, and personal expression.
00:04:35 - Signature Style vs. Style Categories,
Zandra explains the difference between a signature style and style categories. Style categories are labels assigned by brands, while a signature style is personal and reflects different design elements that resonate with an individual. It evolves based on life experiences and preferences.
00:06:11 - Benefit #1
The episode explores how paying attention to home design can improve emotional well-being. Factors such as clutter, color choice, texture, and natural light impact how we feel in our spaces. Taking small steps to declutter and incorporate desired design elements can lead to a sense of calm and peace.
00:10:59 - Benefit #2
The host discusses how style choices can influence relationships. Furniture arrangement affects conversations and connections with others. Creating spaces that facilitate interaction and meet the needs of family members, including children, can strengthen relationships and promote independence.
00:12:41 - Benefit #3
Style is a means of self-expression. It allows individuals to showcase their personality, preferences, and values through design choices. Style matters for both personal fulfillment and creating a unique home that reflects who we are.
00:16:16 - Benefit #4
Zandra discusses four benefits of cultivating your signature style without being influenced by trends or other people's opinions. These benefits include better emotional well-being, stronger connections with others, self-expression and personal development, and increased confidence in other areas of life.
00:16:39 - Emotional Well-Being in Your Home,
Zandra explains how cultivating your signature style in your home can foster better emotional well-being. Your house becomes a place that promotes a positive and comforting atmosphere, enhancing your overall mental health.
00:17:02 - Connections with Others,
Zandra emphasizes that cultivating your signature style in your home allows for stronger connections with other people. Your home becomes a space where friends and family feel welcome and can easily connect with you on a deeper level.
00:17:21 - Self-Expression and Personal Development,
Zandra highlights the significance of self-expression and personal development through decorating your home. Your home becomes a canvas for your creativity and individuality, allowing you to explore and develop your personal style.
00:17:39 - Confidence Boost,
Zandra explains how cultivating your signature style in your home can increase your confidence in other areas of life. By creating a space that reflects your true self, you feel more empowered and confident, which can positively impact other aspects of your life.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
00:00:20
First of all, let me say that I hadn't planned on releasing two solo episodes back to back, but we've had to shuffle some things around with our recording and release schedules. And so here we are. It's just you and me again today. I've been looking over all of the episodes I've shared over the past few months and realized that maybe I haven't been talking enough. About what?
00:00:46
About why all of this stuff matters. And by stuff, I mean decorating, design, beauty, style. You may remember that until very you may remember that until very recently, this podcast was actually called Style Matters. In another episode, I explained why I changed the name, and if you're interested, you can check that out. It's just a few episodes back and I'll link to it in the show Notes page.
00:01:09
Anyway, I still love the idea of asking, why does style matter? Because it forces us to slow down and think for a minute about why we really care about our spaces, the time and the money we spend on them, and what we actually want them to do for us. Sometimes style gets a bad rap if it's thought of only in terms of making things pretty. Personally, 20 years ago, I was kind of embarrassed that I cared about my house so much because it felt superficial. But when I unpacked what my home really meant to me, I came out of the closet as a total all in design lover.
00:01:51
So I would like to share. So no, I don't think it's enough to simply say I want things to look pretty. Because if that's the only thing directing your choices, you're missing other benefits that come with thoughtful design. Plus, you're probably going to get tired of it more quickly and you can easily fall into the trap of grabbing a bunch of trendy stuff over and over again. So why does style matter?
00:02:17
What does creating a beautiful, meaningful home do for us? I believe there are four main categories, or four awesome benefits to paying attention to your home and actively cultivating a signature style. They are better emotional well being, more fulfilling connections with other people, a means of self expression and personal development, and increased confidence in other areas of your life. I'm going to go through each one of these, but first, let me clarify what I mean by cultivating a signature style and how it's a bit different than deciding on a style category that you'll decorate with. Nowadays, style categories are the labels that are given to a set of design elements created by brands to help customers distinguish one set of products from another.
00:03:08
I don't think it was always this way. For example, just think for a minute about the style category. Art Deco. All right. Do you have sort of an image in your head about what an Art Deco piece might look like, or a piece of furniture or a poster?
00:03:23
It came from a group of designers, not brands, in the their creations consisted of their creations consisted of shapes, lines, materials, and motifs that were both a reaction to current socioeconomic forces and a push for different social commentary going into the future. And a push toward a different social commentary going into the future. Designers who made objects and furniture created brands, not the other way around. I love this style category. I love this style category, along with many other style categories, such as the Arts and Crafts movement and Bauhaus and mid century modern and pop art.
00:04:06
Somewhere along the way, though, the designers started having less to do with creating new styles than the marketers. And I don't think that's where and I think that's where we ran into trouble. No one wants a marketer dictating what we should or should not be putting into our homes, right? And yet that's exactly what's happened, at least on a large scale. A Signature style, on the other hand, is nuanced and very personal, reflecting many facets of who you are.
00:04:35
You create it by pulling a few design elements here and there from different styles or style categories so that your home has multiple layers of emotion and meaning. You can be a maximalist, a minimalist, somewhere in between. You can prefer a natural palette or a darkened or dark and moody colors, or bright, happy ones. A Signature style is always evolving as you gather new life experiences that inform what you love to look at and how you want to feel inside your home. It's a mix of different objects, colors, patterns, materials that no one but you will be putting together.
00:05:16
Okay, moving on. Why does this type of style, a signature style, matter? What's the end goal of caring about how our homes look and feel? I think we know it's not about keeping up with the Joneses, although, truth be told, some of us do feel a very real pressure to do so. And if you're one of those people, let's just try and experiment, and I'm going to grant you the relief of not feeling that way for the remainder of this episode, okay?
00:05:42
Just imagine what it would feel like to not care about what other people think for just a few moments. Like I was saying, there are four main benefits that I can think of that come from paying attention to your home. The first one is improving your emotional well being. And of course, we're all going to define that differently. When I'm talking about emotional well being, I mean feeling calm, rested, safe, at peace.
00:06:11
Things that factor into that are the amount of clutter we're living with, the colors and texture and natural light that we have, and at least having one space for privacy, which could be for bathing or meditating or maybe just even having a quiet moment with a cup of tea for some people.
00:06:35
For some people, having a cluttered desk is enough to keep them from being productive, while for others, a cluttered kitchen might keep them from cooking healthy foods.
00:06:50
Clutter can also affect our emotional well being.
00:06:56
Clutter can also affect our emotional well being if we're looking at things that remind us of unhappy times or it can make us feel stuck and even hopeless. Some studies have even shown that because clutter can act some studies have even shown that because clutter can act as emotional weight, it can affect our physical weight as well. So there are lots of good reasons to pay attention to the amount of clutter you have and feel motivated to do something about it. But if you're having trouble getting started, I highly recommend just declutter one small area and then make yourself stop. If you do too much at once, you can overexhaust yourself emotionally, I mean, and then not want to keep going another day.
00:07:40
And that's not what we're after. As for design elements such as color and texture as for how design elements such as color and texture can factor into our emotional well being, we know from studies done in orphanages, hospitals and prisons that being exposed to certain colors for a majority of hours in the day can contribute to maintaining a certain level of depression, while other colors can help us think differently about our situation in a positive way. So many people live with whatever wall color there was from the previous owner or a contractor without realizing that taking just a little time to choose colors that you respond well to and then getting out the brushes and the paint cans can go a long way toward offering you that feeling of relief or peace of mind when you walk through the door. Texture texture is important too. You know how good it feels to lie down in soft sheets or wrap yourself in a soft blanket when you're sick, or you want to feel comforted and a lack of texture.
00:08:52
All you need to think about is how good it feels to lie down in soft sheets or a soft blanket when you're cold or you're sick, or you want to feel comforted. And a lack of different textures mixed together creates a more and a lack of different textures mixed together creates a more sterile feeling environment isolated from the natural world. For example, think about a kitchen with a polished marble counter, frosted glass cabinetry, brass fixtures, a stainless steel backsplash, and metal stools. Now picture a kitchen where you've got a woven basket holding fruit, tumbled tile on the backsplash, a banquet with cushions, and wood cabinets. Now, if you are someone who loves a now, you might be thinking, oh, but that second one but that second one is starting to sound really maximalist or really country farmhouse.
00:09:52
Hold on. If you're someone who loves a classic white kitchen, you can have that in both of those examples. I'm not saying that you have to add color. Having texture does not require color. But the second example has a much softer landing than the first example because it's bringing in a variety of textures that aren't all manmade.
00:10:15
And we know that exposure to nature is an important part of feeling human. There's this whole branch of scientific research out there called biophilia that talks about this. Natural light falls into this category as well, which is why fluorescent lights can cause headaches in some people. And even overhead lights, when not used in conjunction with other sources of light, can make us feel cranky or deplete us of energy. So taking the time to paint or add a little texture to a room or even just replacing a light bulb really pays off onto the second reason why style matters or why onto the second reason why style or decorating or decor matters.
00:10:59
I said that style choices can affect your relationships. And you can take this literally. And we can talk about all of the ways in which you and your partner or whomever you may be living with can fight over style decisions or conversely, come to know each other better when you talk about the reasons behind the style decisions you're fighting for. But today I'm talking about how style choices but today I'm talking about how style choices can affect relationships in more subtle ways. For one thing, how you've arranged your furniture really matters if everything is up against the wall and there's too much space in the middle of the room, your conversations are going to feel more awkward.
00:11:41
If you've set up your living room with a large sectional sofa where no one is actually facing each other. That's also uncomfortable for conversations, but it might be perfect for snuggling up and watching TV. It's not that it's bad. It just depends on what you want to do and experience in that room.
00:12:00
If you want to have people over and feel really connected to them, you'll have a much easier time of it if everyone feels relaxed and furniture arrangement is a big part of that. And if you have kids, think about how spaces are set up for them, for reading and doing homework, for having a place to touch base with them about how they're doing on a daily basis, and setting up ways to help them stay organized and develop independence. Any effort you put into these things will make your relationships with prickly teenagers a little more manageable. They probably won't thank you in the moment, let's be real and they may not even recognize you've actually done something for them. But wait till they go to a friend's house or wait till they move out.
00:12:41
Then they'll know how good they had it at home. Style also matters when it comes to self expression, and probably most people think of style primarily in this way. But I want to take it a step further and acknowledge that self expression is also related to personal development. Think about it this way. When we try on different clothing styles, we're checking in with ourselves to see how it feels to be someone a bit different than who we are.
00:13:08
We're asking ourselves if we like what we see in the mirror, do we like this other new person, if it feels right to us, if we want to challenge ourselves to grow a bit and wear leather pants for a change. Or maybe we're looking at ourselves in the mirror in this new, different kind of outfit and we're confirming how comfortable and happy we are with how our clothes have been representing us all this time. You won't know unless you try things out and test the waters. And our homes are really no different. If the only thing you ever wear is sweatpants, you're going to feel like someone who only goes to places where sweatpants are the if the only thing you ever wear is sweatpants, you're going to feel like someone who only goes to places where sweatpants are the expectation and who only interacts with people who expect you to be in sweatpants.
00:13:59
Now, I like sweatpants as much as the next guy, but that's not always who I am or how I want to feel. So if your home is decorated in the sweatpants equivalent, it's going to feel a bit like a dump zone and you'll be missing out on the opportunity to also feel energetic and creative and social and productive in your home. And yeah, your home can do all of those things for you if you set it up with those intentions. Which is why style matters. And just like you might not want to have and just like you might not want to have a closet full of clothes that you've been wearing since you were in college, you might not want to buy furniture.
00:14:43
Lay. Down a rug and just leave it that way for 20 years without looking at it again? Rearranging things going through your mementos every once in a while, swapping out what's hanging on your walls. All of these activities are really an exploration of who you're becoming. It's an opportunity to check in with yourself, how am I doing?
00:15:03
What am I interested in? How am I feeling about who I've become? Do I want to make any changes? Which is what personal development is all about, right? And isn't it awesome that your home can be that place where you do all of this?
00:15:16
I think that's pretty awesome. Along those lines is the fourth reason why I think style matters. When you take a little care in what you choose to put on your shelves or what pillows are on your chairs, or whether you light candles regularly or just leave them in the candlesticks unlit, you are putting yourself on display. And the more you see yourself and the more you invite others in to see you, the more your confidence grows. In every aspect of your life.
00:15:48
Of your life. Yes, your home should be, in part, your own private sanctuary. But it can also be a place where you welcome people in to get to know you. And that act of being a bit vulnerable, showing off your quirky collections or knowing full well that the weird object you inherited from your great grandfather is going to spark some questions, you are developing your confidence. You're getting used to unapologetically sharing pieces of yourself.
00:16:16
And believe me, that has a ripple effect. So there you go. Four benefits to cultivating your signature style without being a slave to trends or other people's opinions. In other words, four reasons why decorating matters.
00:16:39
Number one your house is going to be a place that fosters better emotional well being. Your house is going to be a place that fulfills connections with other people more readily. Your house is a place for self expression and personal development. And your house is going to help you increase your confidence in other areas of your life. As always, I'm here to help.
00:17:02
So shoot me an email if you want to bounce ideas off of me. Zandra@slowstylehome.com.