How to Find Your Interior Decorating Diva
Photo Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
College dorm rooms or apartments often fall by the wayside as far as decorating goes, but the truth is, your college space is a great place to express your personal style. This new series of posts will help you make your space somewhere that makes you feel happy, comfortable, and proud to show off to friends!
So, don’t be intimidated by the tiny dimensions or bare white walls! In no time, you will be on the way to turning your drab dorm into a functional and stylish place to spend your time.
The First Step: Determine Your Personal Interior Style
You probably already know what your tastes are in fashion. That same style radar can be used to tune into interior design as well! The trick is figuring out what you like and turning it into a reality in your room.
3 Fun Ways to Find Your Interior Style
1. Figure out what inspires you and determine why it does.
Scour blogs, online picture galleries, magazines, friends’ rooms, anywhere you can find! Pick out images that you find inspirational and keep track of them. Keep a file of pictures that jump out at you either on your computer (you could use Evernote) or on paper. Then, go through the pictures and figure out what elements of the room drew you to the picture at first glance.
Some great places to find inspiring pictures are:
The Apartment Therapy home tours section
House Beautiful photo galleries
Belle Maison Blog
Decorology Blog 
Enjoy! And remember, these are just to help you find pictures that can guide you to your personal taste. They don’t necessarily have to be pictures of bedrooms.
2. Take hints from what you already have.
Look at the particular pieces of furniture or decorations that you already have and love. Basing your room around one particular item can lead to a disaster, but if you have a few pieces that you really love, think about how they go together and what would be a good complement or contrast to them.
3. Take a quiz!
Take this fun quiz at HomeGood’s StyleScope. It will help you put a name on your particular decorating style and may even give you some more ideas.
Tell Us About Your Style!
What do you think your interior style is? Do you have any decorating road blocks that you have encountered?
Be sure to check back next week for my next article about Styling Your Space!
Posted on on September 6, 2009 / Filed Under: Dorm Room / Tags: College Life, Decorating, Dorm Room, How To, Interior Design, Tips
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Luinae
I’ve always wanted to organize my books by colour like in the first photo!
Kim - Cal State
Me too Luinae! It’s just so hard to find books that all match colorwise. I think I’d end up just buying books because I needed more of that color haha. Great post though Blair, I can tell you really did your homework and all these links are really helpful!
Nat
Great post. Just started renovating my study and it pretty much matches my quiz results, Classic Elegant! Overall great site bumped into it on Monday and it immediately found a home on my bookmark bar. Only thing missing are posts on athletic wear? I’m a gym rat and love sports. Plus so many cute outfits!
Keep up the great work!!
Rania
MMM I don’t like my books exposed like that. They gather so much dust. But thanks for the post. I’ve been waiting for a home decoration article for so long .
Leia
Excellent post! I’m lousy at interior decor – can’t wait to read your next post :)
Valeria
:O
Excellent post!! I’ve been looking for this kind of post forever! :)
Thanks! This is been very useful!
Ally
Ahh, this is a great post. I don’t pay too much attention to decorating a whole lot in college because I only stay in my room for nine months, but I know once I’m in law school with my own apartment I’m going to want to do something fab…this definitely helps, but its also just a good thing my current roommate is an Interior Design major. ;)
Michelle
Such a great post! I’m an architecture major and that quiz was spot on for what I’m designing my apartment to be like. Such a great job, and I’m sure I’ll be going through ALL of the sites you posted!
Julie
OMG! I’m so loving al the new posts by the new girls. You are all fab!
These are very useful links, specially since I’ve been wanting to re-decorate my room forever!
Alicia
LOVE this post!!
And apparently i am a GLAMOROUS ECLECTIC. Haha. =] i had fun taking that quiz! Thanks for posting it!
Kaci
I loved this post! I definitely do the first point you made alot. I love saving pictures and ideas to my computer or Evernote and finding exactly what in the picture was my favorite thing about it, whether it be the colors or a piece of furniture. ApartmentTherapy is great. Another site I like alot is decor8blog.com. There’s also tons of links to other great blogs that give me inspiration on there as well. Thanks for the quiz! I really enjoyed this post because I’ve been thinking alot about decorating in anticipation for my upcoming move.
Oh, and I love to color code my books like in the picture… it makes everything pretty. If you don’t have enough books for each color, then take one color that you have alot of and put them on display away from the others.
Amy
Great post! I love the books organized by color picture–however it wouldn’t work as well with my collection!
Jess
Great post girl. I always forget that it is necessary to decorate the place where you spend most of your time (outside from school and work). thanks for the tips.
Linda
Loved this post!
Actually, I love all of the new girls, so far they’ve been great!
Zephyr this was a really smart/fun/fab move for CF!
Sarah
Yay! This is a great idea for a post. I love decorating and redecorating my room! Can’t wait for more :)
Brittney
There’s a Livejournal community that is a great resource if you’re looking for some inspiration – http://community.livejournal.com/ourbedrooms/. It’s full of people who post pictures of their bedrooms – real rooms, not interior design magazine photos.
Great post!
jenna
I love this post. It’s important to style your life in more ways than clothing. Your room can express your style just as much as an outfit. Thanks for this! I can’t wait for the next post, Blair.
Lyndsay
I like the colourful array of artwork, displayed in my personal space. It gives a certain hope and can help choose good clothes when otherwise I might go out with my customary english fashion style.
Jessica
Yayyyyyy! Such a fun and beautiful post. Can’t wait to check out those links!!! I love interior design.