I know you have seen Interior Design shows where the people completely remodel the inside of their home and spend a ton of money to do it. They are ultra excited with the way it turned out, and play it up as the most amazing home ever created on this planet. They boast about everything, as if they toured the ends of the Earth to find a single, perfect door knob for their bedroom.
Then they pan back, and show you the finished room in it's entirety.
What you end up seeing is not an inspirational room loaded with personality and style, but what looks like an ultra-traditional furniture showroom upchucked in their house. It looks as if no one has ever lived (or will ever live) in it, as there is no form of personality.
This is usually evident in the matchy matchy furniture, cold or subjectless art (beige squares on top of rust squares counts as art?), pointless and perfectly placed tchotchkes, the very popular "matching balls in matching bowl", the arbitrary book or magazine perfectly angled on a surface, and no personal effects lying around. Oh, and don't forget the overly gratuitous use of stone, granite, tile, iron, and faux finished walls. If you are lucky, they will throw in columns to fool you into thinking they are structurally necessary!
I like to call this Serious Design because absolutely nothing is out of place, and the placement of everything can be measured to the millimeter.
This is not what you ever want in a home, EVER EVER EVER.
Your home is a physical representation of your personality. It is where you want your personal whimsy to take over. When I see serious design, I deem the inhabitant to have no personality, no friends, no hobbies, and no desires. I would much rather visit someone hip deep in clutter than ever set foot in a serious house.
While you may want a polished home that looks like it could appear on the cover of Architectural Digest, you have to remember one thing. Those people have the designers come back into their home and stage the crap out of it for the photo shoot. They dont ACTUALLY live that way.
Most people have hobbies, families, pets, and dreams, and it should be evident in their homes. If you want to keep your home upscale but don't wish to lose your personality, remember to include a bit of whimsy in the design.
Whether you are an avid reader, gardener, collect old maps, knit, breed collies, or watch birds, find a way to add it to your home. Make it beautiful and unexpected:
Think outside the box:
Be literal:
Just make sure you know when to stop:
If you think it might make someone vomit, you overdid it!
