A Home That Feels Like You
Because the most interesting homes aren't the ones that follow all the rules. They're the ones that tell you something about the person who lives there.
There comes a point when you stop asking whether everything in your home goes together and start asking a much better question:
Does any of this actually feel like me?
Perhaps it's a colour you've always loved but never quite dared to put on a wall. A painting that makes you laugh. Something inherited that isn't particularly fashionable but that you'd never part with. A slightly ridiculous lamp. A beautiful thing brought home from somewhere you loved. The photograph that was never going to win any awards but still makes you smile every time you pass it.
The homes I find most interesting aren't perfect. They aren't decorated entirely from one collection, one trend or one carefully coordinated palette. They have accumulated.
They contain old things beside new ones. Expensive things beside things picked up for almost nothing. Art chosen because it meant something rather than because it matched the sofa. Colours that weren't selected because somebody declared them fashionable.
They tell you something about the person who lives there.
And perhaps that's what creating a beautiful home should really be about.
Not making it look like everybody else's.
Making it feel more like yours.
Start With Colour
Colour is one of the simplest ways to make a home feel more personal, but somewhere along the way many of us became rather frightened of getting it wrong.
We learnt to ask which colours go together, which ones make a room look bigger, which shade is fashionable and whether we'll still like it in five years.
Perhaps the better place to start is much simpler.
Which colours make you happy?
It might be the deep green of an old velvet chair, the particular pink of a favourite lipstick, the blue you remember from somewhere you've travelled, or a completely impractical orange that makes you smile every time you see it.
You don't have to colour-drench an entire room or replace everything you own. Colour can arrive gradually — through a piece of art, a cushion, a painted shelf, a lampshade or something you've found and couldn't resist bringing home.
And it doesn't all have to match.
In fact, some of the most interesting rooms happen when colours have been collected rather than coordinated.
Choose colours because you love living with them, not because somebody else has decided they belong together.
Sometimes the most personal rooms begin with unexpected colour combinations that simply make you happy.
Let Your Walls Say Something
Art doesn't have to match the sofa.
It doesn't have to fill a particular-sized gap, complete a colour scheme or make sense to anybody who doesn't live in your home.
Sometimes the best reason to hang something on your wall is simply that you couldn't stop thinking about it.
Perhaps it makes you laugh. Perhaps the words say something you've always thought but never quite said aloud. It might remind you of somebody, somewhere you've been or a version of yourself you don't want to forget. Or perhaps you just love it and couldn't really explain why.
That's enough.
I've become far less interested in choosing art because it's the right thing for a room and much more interested in choosing things that create a reaction.
Mix an old painting with something contemporary. Put a cheap print beside something precious. Hang the photograph that means everything to you even if it isn't technically a very good photograph. Keep the slightly peculiar picture you inherited because you've grown strangely fond of it.
Your walls don't need to impress everybody who walks through the door.
They just need to mean something to you.
Read next: Why Your Walls Should Say Something (Not Just Look Nice) →
Keep the Things That Tell Your Story
Not everything in a beautiful home has to be beautiful.
Some things earn their place for entirely different reasons.
The chipped bowl that belonged to your grandmother. The slightly odd thing you brought home from a holiday. A child's drawing you still can't bring yourself to put away. Something inherited that you'd never have chosen yourself but that somehow became part of your home anyway.
These are often the things that make one home feel completely different from another.
I used to think rooms worked best when everything worked together. Now I think the opposite can be far more interesting.
A home can be a collection of your life rather than a collection of things that match.
Put the old beside the new. Keep something because it makes you laugh. Display the object that would probably never make it into an interiors stylist's shopping list. Let the things you've inherited, collected, found and loved sit alongside the things you've bought deliberately for the room.
You don't have to justify any of it.
Because when everything in a home has been chosen simply because it looks right together, it's very easy to create a beautiful room.
But when a room contains pieces of someone's actual life?
That's when it becomes theirs.
Let Your Home Change When You Do
Sometimes a home stops feeling like us simply because we've changed.
A room might have been exactly right ten years ago and feel completely wrong today. Something you once loved may no longer suit you. A colour you would never have considered suddenly feels irresistible. You might want less, more, brighter, calmer, stranger — or simply different.
That doesn't mean you got it wrong the first time.
Homes aren't finished projects. They change as our lives do.
Moving house, children leaving home, the end or beginning of a relationship, retirement, a new job — or simply reaching a point where you realise you no longer want to make choices based on what everybody else might think.
Sometimes the change is enormous. Sometimes it's painting a wall the colour you've secretly wanted for years.
You don't have to replace everything or discover a completely new interiors style. Start by noticing what still feels like you — and what doesn't.
Move things around. Take something down. Bring something forgotten out of a cupboard. Paint the room. Hang the picture. Give away the thing you've never really liked.
Your home doesn't have to remain faithful to a version of you that no longer exists.
Let it evolve with you.
Read next: How to Make Your Home Feel Like You After a Life Change →
Your Home Doesn't Need to Behave
There are plenty of rules about how a home is supposed to look.
Don't mix too many colours. Keep small rooms pale. Choose one style and stick to it. Match your metals. Don't put that there. And apparently every room needs something called a cohesive colour palette.
Some of those rules can be useful.
But none of them matter as much as whether you actually like the room you've created.
If you love pink and red together, use them. Put something modern beside something that's been in your family for fifty years. Hang a ridiculously large picture in a small room. Paint the ceiling. Mix stripes with flowers. Keep the chair everybody else thinks is dreadful.
A home doesn't become personal because you've successfully followed a decorating formula.
It becomes personal through all the little decisions that probably wouldn't make sense in somebody else's house.
And perhaps that's a better test than asking whether everything goes together.
Could this room belong to anybody — or could it only belong to you?
Read next: Why Your Home Doesn't Need to Behave: The Case for Personality-Led Interiors →
Make Room for the Things You Actually Love
Creating a home that feels like you isn't about filling every wall, shelf and corner.
Sometimes it's about noticing what you don't really love anymore.
The vase you bought because it matched the room. The picture that's been hanging there for years simply because you had a space to fill. The chair you don't particularly like but somehow keep arranging the rest of the room around.
We can become so used to the things in our homes that we stop seeing them.
Try looking at a room as though you've just walked into it for the first time.
What would you keep?
What would you move?
What would you never buy again?
And what is tucked away somewhere because it doesn't quite “go”, even though you absolutely love it?
You don't need to replace everything with something new. Sometimes taking one thing away gives something you already own the space it needed.
Sometimes moving a painting to another room changes both rooms.
Sometimes the slightly ridiculous lamp that's been hidden in a cupboard turns out to be exactly what was missing.
Keep what matters. Make room for what delights you. Let the rest become less important.
Because a home that feels like you isn't created by owning more things.
It's created by becoming more particular about the things you choose to live with.
Why I Care About This
For years, I thought a beautiful home was one where everything worked together.
I still love beautiful things. I still notice colour, proportion and how a room feels. But these days I'm much less interested in whether everything matches — and far more interested in whether a home tells me something about the person who lives there.
I like rooms with history.
Things brought home from somewhere. Things inherited. Things chosen simply because they made someone laugh. Art that says something. Colours somebody loves even though they aren't particularly fashionable. The slightly battered chair they couldn't bear to get rid of.
I've also learned that our homes don't have to stay the same just because we do.
Life changes. We change. Our tastes change. And sometimes creating a home that feels more like you begins with giving yourself permission to stop decorating for the person you used to be — or the person you thought you were supposed to be.
I don't want my home to look as though it could belong to anybody.
And that's really the idea behind A Home That Feels Like You.
Not a decorating style. Not a list of rules.
Just a home filled with things that make sense to the person who lives there.
— Tee, founder of She Created A Life She Loved
Explore A Home That Feels Like You
There isn't one way to create a home that feels like you.
Perhaps you want to use more colour. Perhaps your walls have been waiting for something more interesting. Maybe your home no longer quite fits the life you're living now. Or perhaps you simply want to stop worrying quite so much about whether everything is right.
Start wherever feels most like you.
Colour
Decorate with colours you actually love
You don't need to become a maximalist to use more colour. Start with the colours you're naturally drawn to and find ways to bring them into your home on your own terms.
Explore Colourful Wall Art for Maximalist Homes →
Art
Put something on your walls that says something
Art doesn't have to coordinate politely with the sofa. Choose something because it makes you laugh, reminds you of something, means something — or simply because you can't stop looking at it.
Explore Why Your Walls Should Say Something →
Need help choosing a size?
See our guide to choosing between A4, A3, A2 and A1 art prints →
Personality
Make your home less perfect and more yours
Mix things that weren't designed to go together. Keep the odd thing. Ignore a decorating rule occasionally. The most memorable homes often reveal something about the people who live in them.
Explore Why Your Home Doesn't Need to Behave →
Life Change
Let your home catch up with you
Our homes can hold on to previous versions of us long after we've changed. You don't need to start again. Sometimes moving, removing, painting or rediscovering what you already own is enough.
Explore How to Make Your Home Feel Like You After a Life Change →
Find Something That Feels Like You
Sometimes it's one picture that changes the feeling of a room.
Explore art made for homes with colour, humour, personality and something to say.
Explore She Created A Life She Loved Art Prints →
Not Sure Where to Begin?
You don't need to change your whole home.
The Calm Home Starter Kit is a free, gentle place to start, with simple ideas for using colour, art and the things you already own to make your home feel a little more like yours.