How to Find Your Design Style

Your design style is crucial to creating spaces that resonate with you. Let’s find your style! Remember this is not an overnight process. You can look at something and say “I like that”, but to actually live with it everyday is a different story. We’re big fans of letting things marinate.

First and foremost, we focus on feelings. How does a space, object, color, etc. make you feel? What is your physical reaction? If you want your space to feel comforting, what elements soothe and calm you? Or perhaps you want a space that excites and engages, look for things that create that feeling for you. When you find a space that makes you feel good, take a photo. Look back at it from time to time and see how your feelings change. Do you still love it or has it lost appeal?

But where do you find this inspiration? Start with your clothes. What colors, patterns, and textures do you gravitate towards?⁠ Teal describes her interior style as "warm contemporary" which means relaxed, with varying shades and textures mixing wood, metal, stone, and fabrics with plenty of accessorizing.⁠ ⁠Her clothing choices reflect that through her mix of breezy whites in the summer with textual details, sporty footwear, and plenty of accessorizing through jewelry, hats, sun glasses etc.

What is our Design Style?

Wendy's interior design style experiments with pops of color and warm woods. Since her interiors are so playful, her daily clothing is more mellow but she will pick interesting fabric cuts with fun pops!⁠ Your clothing might directly translate to your interior style like Teal or contrast it like Wendy.

Once you’ve reflected on your closet, look for inspiration in restaurants, hotels, friends’ homes, retail stores, Airbnb’s, movies, the list is endless. We’re designers, so we are constantly observing the design choices around us. Try looking up from your plate of food and checking out the decor around you at the next restaurant you dine at (and we don’t mean Denny’s). Restaurants (for the most part) have carefully curated ambiances that contribute to their dining experience.

Inspiration is Everywhere

We love the interior of local Portland restaurant Ava Genes. The lighting is definitely a vibe and is a great example of being inspired by what you see out and about and emulating that vibe in your own kitchen. Maybe your takeaway here is mixing brass, frosted bulbs, and lower color temperatures & wattage, not the exact light you see in the restaurant.

Another option for the more sedentary folks is browsing Pinterest. Try searching styles like modern, traditional, mid century modern, and bohemian. There are tons of subgenres and fusion styles to explore beyond the mainstream styles. Dive down that rabbit hole! Design magazines are also a great source for design inspo. One of our favorite pastimes is paging through the latest Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Wallpaper, Dwell, Luxe…. who misses the paper version of Domino Mag (meee)?

Knowing what you don’t like is just as informative as what you do like. At the beginning of the design process, we like to assess what our clients already have in their home. Do they have colorful pieces, neutral pieces, or lots of texture? What do they love in their home and equally important, what don’t they like? That can be the first hint at what to tackle first.

Based on their existing space and initial impression, we start building out idea boards for them to respond to. On a previous project, we presented a board with a variety of styles to a client to get a feel for their style. Turns out they didn’t like stripes, and of course there were stripes in nearly every image. Needless to say “NO STRIPES” was written very largely across the board.

The feeler board featuring plenty of stripes and fun pops of color!

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but as designers we experience decision fatigue A LOT. We are hyper aware of all the possibilities out there and often can’t decide where to go. When accessorizing her home, Wendy hired a stylist to bring in new ideas and see how someone else would curate the space.

We also have favorite designers who inspire us and our work. Teal loves Sarah Sherman Samuel (SSS). One of Teal’s projects, Verde Vista, is directly inspired by SSS’s work. The kitchen draws on the large knobs, white cabinets, slab behind the range, and mini shelves.

Another designer Teal and Wendy love is Kelly Wearstler, a high end designer known for her hotel collabs, lighting, and furniture. She mixes color, crazy shapes, metals, and is not afraid to do the unexpected. While we might not love everything she does, there’s moments that inspire us like taking a super cool couch she styled and making it the focal point in our spaces. Some examples of her work are below.

Axel Vervoort is another designer we admire (insert deep bow), famous for his art and antiques and well established interiors. His expression is all about bringing in the feeling of nature and neutral tones so when you're looking at his spaces you feel the texture without even touching it. Some of Vervoort’s spaces are below.

These three designers should feel very different from each other. We love how design means taking a neutral sofa and neutral pillows and pairing them with a crazy metal, or colorful side table. If you like it, then it works! Designing your space ultimately comes down to satisfying your needs and creating a space you enjoy. Your style will evolve and change with some mainstays like that weird piece of art you can’t seem to part with... or maybe it’s time to donate Great Aunt Mildred’s dresser.

We’d love to hear from you! Please comment below or DM us on Instagram @tealandscott.