Defining My Style

For a lover of interior decoration and architecture, it can be difficult to decide on a style or theme for your home: you see so much beauty in magazines, blogs, and Pinterest posts boards, that it seems impossible to choose one to stick with for the long term.

As a younger woman, I went through multiple design phases, one of which consisted of yards of crimson chenille and velvet; my mother dubbed it “French Bordello”. It was only five years ago that I discovered the style that is unabashedly, unashamedly ME. 

It’s taken a long time to arrive at my style, and it all began with a Mid Century Modern console. Fifteen years ago, I purchased a low console from the 1950s, a surprise to my mother because I typically gravitated towards dark, heavily carved antique furniture, along with forest greens and the previously mentioned deep crimsons. Still, I bought the console, then decorated my first studio apartment in neo-medieval splendor (or French Bordello, if you must). I slept under a claret-colored velvet bedspread, sat in a chair upholstered in red chenille with green ivy leaves, and ate at a dark brown antique gate-leg table. The console was woefully out of place, so I hid it beneath a homemade pleated cloth fashioned from a Ralph Lauren red-and-brown plaid.

Cul de Sac, Michell Weinberg

My next apartment was far less brooding, with a cream loveseat given to me by an elderly woman from my parents’ church; the red chenille chair seat reupholstered in aqua ultrasuede and a blue-and-wheat woven silk on the back; and the 1950s console proudly on display. My bed wore a vintage bedspread in pinks, aqua, and soft olive greens atop a crisp white blanket. Pink and purple embroidered pillowcases I’d collected from antique malls during my teens were finally put to use. (Obviously, my teenage interests weren’t among the stereotypical dating/football/movies categories.) Perhaps the change in my apartment décor said something about my emotional states during those years, or maybe it was simply because I loved too many colors and styles to decide on one theme.

Ten years later, my style is more defined, and the objects I own work cohesively, though their styles are seemingly incompatible. To preempt my mother giving my style a moniker, I named it “Delightful Mélange”. 

The living room is arranged around an orange velvet sofa, a jolt of color against soft gray walls and a rug woven in natural and faded navy jute fibers. The 1950s console lives happily across the room from a carved African drum reused as a drinks table. The antique gate-leg table is flanked by mismatched chairs, one from the 1830s and the other from the 1960s awaiting reupholstery in olive mohair velvet.

The random art my husband and I collected over the years – prints from a now defunct art magazine, Randall Munroe’s “United Shapes of America”, and wrestling photos taken by artist Zia Danger – hold their own, particularly when surmounted by a bleached deer skull. In the office I share with my husband, my desk area is decorated with a set of mounted antlers from my maternal grandfather’s hunting days, and an abstract print in pastels colors, framed in an ornate silver filigreed frame. Robert's desk is overseen by a watercolor portrait of our older dog, Fred, painted by my aunt. We intend to commission her to paint another of our young female, Ginger, sometime after Christmas.

United Shapes of America, Randall Munroe

Our bedroom is home to a 1920 Scottish chest of drawers, bedside tables from Baker’s 1949 Far East Collection, and a gaudy Rococo headboard upholstered in creamy linen and gilt to the gills. Despite my desire for a monochromatic soft green bedroom, complete with bed hangings, our bed is clothed in a navy quilted sateen coverlet and soft violet linen sheets: colors I pulled from the Karastan Kirman rug that fills the room. The bedding’s darker colors also serve a definite purpose: to mask the any trace our dogs leave behind after our nightly snuggle sessions in bed.

Multicolor Panel Kirman, Karastan